


Genie

by sk8rpssockpup (MissIzzy)



Series: Evgenia [2]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Adopted Children, Alternate History, Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Brother-Sister Relationships, Children, Concussions, F/F, F/M, Family, Female Friendship, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Internalized Homophobia, Internalized Misogyny, Jealousy, Marriage, Marriage Proposal, Non-Chronological, Parent-Child Relationship, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Sexism, Wedding Night, Widowed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-25
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2019-03-23 20:33:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 42,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13795794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissIzzy/pseuds/sk8rpssockpup
Summary: Fifty things she was during her lifetime.





	Genie

**Author's Note:**

> Three warnings:
> 
> 1\. General reminder that characters may express views the author doesn't agree with, and wouldn't want the reader to agree with. Our heroine has quite a few of those.  
> 2\. In particular, this fic has her have a relationship that she won't recognize as abusive until years after its end.  
> 3\. I started writing this in 2013, back when I was still immersed in hockey. I've fallen away from it since, to the point that after finishing it last week, I had to do research while editing to try to bring it up to date. There may be some things had transpired in the years since I've missed. A couple of things (including Sid and Geno's recent SOs) I've ignored completely.

  1. _2012-Role Model_



Sasha hadn’t wanted to go just after leaving the Caps, so when Anna Prugova first arrived in the States Genie went to see her instead, because there was a thought one of them ought to, even though they were now connected to rival franchises.  But then again, possible lockout aside, the odds probably would’ve been against the girl making even the Bears lineup even if she’d been a boy.

Not that she seemed to care that much.  Genie had heard the story a hundred times already, how she and two of her friends had been kicking around late at night, following the draft online, Anna mentioning to them that the Caps’ last pick had been the result of a trade for a goalie, and one of them wondering what magnificent Russian they were going to draft with it this time, and all three jaws had dropped when the name that had come up had been none other than Anna’s.  When realizing she had a place at the development camp she’d scrambled like mad for her visa; just about every Russian in the league’s system had gotten involved trying to procure it. 

Genie was there to greet her at the airport, along with Katy Headman, the Caps’ Operations Director, who loaded Anna and her things into her huge car.  With Sasha gone, Anna was now the only girl in the Caps system, and Headman looked happy to see her.  Given how hard she especially had worked to ram the visa through, that would hardly have been surprising even had she been a boy.  Anna was very grateful, thanking her at least twice, but her focus was unmistakably on Genie.  She seemed rather starstruck.  Genie lived with it; she’d learned to.

“So, technically,” Headman said to her, “you’re actually not from Siberia?”  Genie was glad she’d finally realized that; she was getting tired of people marveling at her that all of Russia’s female hockey players seemed to come out of Siberia.  She knew Sasha was too; she’d recently lamented to her over the phone about Sanja not having a sister or something.  “Although Sanja seems way too convinced any sister of his would’ve played basketball instead,” she’d added.

“Tell her I’m from Moscow now, anyway,” Anna said to Genie, and Genie did so.  Headman seemed disappointed; after all, the Caps already had the biggest hockey player to come out of Moscow on their roster.  “Don’t tell her this, but I really needed to get out of Khabarovsk.”  She looked at Genie as if she expected Genie to understand.  Well, she did, mostly; she understood because she’d had to get out of Magnitogorsk in the exact same way.  But she hadn’t been happy about it, the way this girl seemed, and Magnitogorsk hadn’t stopped being where she was from.  She was comfortable enough when she was living in Moscow, but she couldn’t imagine ever calling it any kind of hometown.

“Ask her if she wants to go straight to the hotel or wants the scenic route,” said Headman.  “It’s very late in the day, so we’ll meet everyone tomorrow.”  When told this, Anna looked disappointed.  Naturally she wanted the scenic route.  “Then we’ll take a tour of DC,” said Headman, when Genie had translated her response.  “Don’t know how much, what with the traffic, but I’ll show you the Verizon Center at the very least.  You know they almost put Sasha Semina on it.”

Anna actually wasn’t that impressed when this last sentence was translated.  “They should’ve known she’d leave.  But they like those girls, don’t they?  The pretty _ladywingers_.”  It seemed she’d heard that English term already, the one first coined by Pierre McGuire, that the sportswriters loved so much they used it not only on Genie, who generally preferred to play center (though she had spent a lot of time on the wing and Sid’s wing especially in her earlier years on the Penguins), but even defensewomen on occasion.  At least the sportswriters that didn’t usually cover hockey were prone to making that gaffe.  Though Genie had never heard it used for a goalie.  Yet.

They didn’t end up seeing that much more; traffic in DC was always horrible.  But Anna shrugged that off, talking about Moscow traffic, and anyway, even that was great for her; it meant she had time to look.  She pressed her nose to the glass when they passed the Verizon Center, where the odds were still very long indeed she’d ever wear a Caps jersey, but they were aware it was the connection to the place that was the important thing, the ability, so long as she made so much as the Reading Royals, to say she was part of the best hockey system in the world.

Of course, in the 2010s, that was no longer as incredible a thing as it had been in the 1990s, or even the 2000s.  It had been nearly twenty years, after all, since the audience in Florida had yelled they wanted the girl back, and they’d gotten Manon back, and it had turned into a contract that had truly broken the glass ceiling.  And Genie herself had not even been the first Russian woman drafted by the NHL, as she who had been was fond of reminding her.

But how different Anna’s arrival was from her own, she thought.  For more than one reason...

 

  1. _Fugitive_ -2006



Despite it all, as she and her Agidel Ufa teammates walked out of Finnish customs, Zhenya wanted to stop and give the man she still loved one last kiss.  But of course they’d never even admitted they were sleeping together to anyone (well, except that she had admitted it to her agent now), even though the whole team certainly knew.  And she couldn’t do that anyway, because he would never let her leave if he knew she was leaving him.

So she just tucked her hand into her pocket to touch her passport, just to reassure herself she was the one holding it at the moment, and remind herself she had to go before he took it back again, and she said, “I have to go the bathroom.”

She was terrified he’d insist someone go with her.  But she was lucky; he just said, “We’ll wait for you here.”  Could’ve been luckier; but hopefully by the time they stopped waiting she’d be out of the airport.

When she turned the corner she started walking faster.  When she turned another she started running.  The airport was way too big.  People glanced at her in surprise; she ignored them.  Someone called after her, she thought, but the voices and exclamations around her weren’t as loud as Lesha’s voice in her head, the harsh words he’d had for her three weeks ago.

“Do you know how much trouble I had to go to to get this team training time in Finland?  And now you want to be a selfish bitch?  Go chase your own private glory in America, and leave little Russian girls without a good league to aspire to?  Leave them without a role model?  You’ll never get noticed among the men.” 

But she knew it wasn’t like that.  At 17, when he’d first seduced her, she’d believed every word he’d said.  But at 20, she was beginning to understand that someone of her talent needed to play in a league far better than any of the women’s leagues in the world were right now, with Russia’s not at all being the strongest anyway.  By the time they reached that level she’d be too old.  Much as she hated herself for it, and no matter what he said, she simply couldn’t wait. 

 _This isn’t for me_ , she reminded herself as she got outside and kept running, to where she spotted taxis gathering.  _This is for the young Russian women who will come after me_.  _The little girls on the ponds right now, holding their brothers’ sticks, being told they can play hockey by some people but that they can’t play in the NHL by more, that only North American girls can play with the best in the world.  They need someone to prove they can too._

Lesha had to have realized by now.  He who had taken her passport away (for her own good, he’d told her, keep her from doing anything reckless) had known she’d wanted to slip through his fingers, that she didn’t love him enough to give up her great big NHL dream.  She ran, somehow thinking he just might appear right behind her.

She reached an empty cab, trying what Finnish words she’d secretly learned and practiced the past couple of days just for this, mangling them hopelessly, but somehow got out she wanted to go to a hotel, and not one nearby.  She sat there, clutching her small bag, still scared, even after the airport went out of sight.

How she managed through getting a room she was never sure, but somehow she ended up in one, and then she called Mr. Barry and spilled everything to him she hadn’t yet.  The argument, how he’d hit her much harder than usual until she’d worried about getting injured (normally he was careful about that, had been careful about that, she had to remind herself, because now it was _over_ , she hadn’t loved him enough).  How she had spent two nights sleepless next to him before deciding she couldn’t stay any longer.  How she hadn’t told anybody anything.  And how she hadn’t even thought about the visa yet, but she needed to be in Pittsburgh right away, or at least far away from Helsinki before Lesha started tearing the city apart looking for her.

She really wasn’t thinking straight; her agent had to talk her down before she could finally give him the address of the hotel.  “I have few clients as brave as you’ve just been,” he said to her.  “I’ll get to Finland and be there as soon as I can.  But it’s late in the day and the American embassy will probably close before you can find it, and it’s been an exciting one, and you just broke up with your first lover, so I think you need to rest.  Let yourself relax, call in room service, call me again if you need language help doing so, and then we’ll talk again in the morning about the visa, and who to tell first. 

Lesha won’t find you without the help of the police,” he added, “and it’ll probably take time before their aid will come to him.  By then I’ll find a friend to hide you in a place they won’t look.  You’re safe there tonight.  It’s okay; you’re safe there tonight.”

After hanging up, Zhenya collapsed onto the bed, and finally let herself cry.  She didn’t stop for over an hour.

 

  1. _New Recruit-_ 2006



The first person she was introduced to when reaching the Lemieux home was Sergei Gonchar, who had been called there as a translator.  She was still in a bit of a daze, overwhelmed by the relief of finally being there and awe at seeing just how big Pittsburgh was, as well as the general thought of being invited to dinner by Mario Lemieux.

But he was there, and he was very warm when he shook hands, and so was his wife, and they introduced her to their children, and to Sidney Crosby, who apparently lived with them.  The last gave her a shy smile that she found surprisingly endearing, and she immediately hoped they would be friends once she could speak a little English.

She hadn’t gotten a chance to call her family yet.  She had been too aware of how much Denis had admired Lesha, and that she simply could not trust him to keep the secret until she was safely in the United States.  When she explained she wanted to finally put their minds at rest and her new teammate translated it, everyone else assured her they understood perfectly and left her alone in a side room for some privacy.  She’d be amazed at the size of their house, except there wasn’t room for that in her head at the moment.

Though she hadn’t even told her family the truth about her relationship with Lesha, she thought her mother probably suspected.  So when it was she who answered the phone, and Zhenya nearly died of the guilt when she heard the heart-tearing anxiety in her voice, after telling her she was okay and she was in Pittsburgh, she blurted out, “I was having an affair with Lesha.  He wouldn’t have let me go.”

There was a very long pause, during which she wondered if her mother might hang up and never speak to her again.  But when she said, “So you couldn’t tell us,” she sounded sad instead of angry.  “I think...you did the right thing, Zhenechka.  Your father will be angry and your brother even angrier, about everything, but I do understand.”

“I’m so, so sorry, mama,” Zhenya said.  “I wanted to call you so badly.”  But before her mother could respond, she heard her father’s voice, followed by her brother’s; it sounded like they’d gotten out of bed after her mother.  She braced herself as she heard her mother relay the news, and her father’s angry growl, “Let me talk to that girl.”

Her mother added her other confession to her father’s knowledge before relinquishing the phone, which just made him angrier.  At least he actually didn’t blame her for running off, but that she hadn’t told them, that after she’d been so foolish as to have the affair in the first place, she hadn’t trusted them even about that, and then left them to go crazy about her for two whole weeks, were things he found far less forgivable.  By the time she heard Denis say he didn’t want to talk to her at all it was just as well, since she was crying.  She heard him stomp out.

Their father ended up following him, while her mother got back on the phone and said, “It’s all right, Zhenechka.  They’re just upset.  We’ve all been.  It’s been a hard two weeks, I think for everyone.  I’ll try to talk to them.  Call us again in a few hours?”

Zhenya agreed, and they said goodbye.  She was still trying to collect herself when the Lemieux son wandered in.  From his concerned tone, she was pretty sure he was asking her what was wrong.  Then he seemed to remember their guest didn’t speak English and yelled, “Mr. Gonchar!” in such a way that Zhenya nearly laughed.

It got Sergei there though, and he was quickly able to assure Austin Lemieux that Zhenya was all right and her family had just been worried about her.  Austin asked her if she missed them, and Zhenya’s throat got so tight it was hard for her to answer.

“If you want, Evgenia,” Sergei said to her gently, “You can stay with my family for a little while.  Mario’s suggested it.  My wife and I could use a babysitter anyway.  Do you even know where you’re going tonight?”  When Zhenya admitted she didn’t, he really insisted, and she was happy to give in.  The worst part of the last two weeks had been how alone she had been before Mr. Barry had gotten there.

But she wasn’t alone now, she thought, when later she was seated between Sergei and little Austin, the former having to continually work to translate the words of the latter and everyone else, and then they even toasted to her arrival.  It was even a relief of how friendly everyone was; the other girls on Agidel Ufa had all been jealous of her, and never treated her like one of them.  Just like the boys she’d known before she’d joined the woman’s league had also mostly been.  This would be different, Zhenya told herself.  For this one she’d get it right.

 

  1. _Big Sister Figure_ -2009



“Genie!  You’re back!”

When, wondered Genie, had Natalie started calling her by her American nickname?  She was sure she’d still been calling her Zhenya when she’d finally moved out of Gonch’s basement a couple of months back, ending the stay that was supposed to be for a couple of months and had instead lasted a couple of years, finally really ending because of the new baby.  “One little girl is out and another is in,” Gonch had told the press. 

It had nearly ended a year back, when the accusations of her and Gonch having sex had happened, and Genie had offered to move out.  But an angry Gonch had told her that he would’ve been happy to say goodbye because she was ready to live on her own, or even didn’t want to impose on him anymore, but he would not have her driven out.  She suspected it had ultimately only caused her to stay longer.

But now both Natalie and her little sister needed babysitting again, so Genie was once again being hugged by her five year old friend, hugging her back as she tried to listen to Ksenia at the same time about where the phone numbers were, and when Natalie had to go to bed, and what to do if the baby started crying.  She’d done this before a lot, but it was good to have the reminders.  Meanwhile, Natalie was so happy to see her she didn’t even seem to notice that her parents were leaving.

“We should talk in English, Genie,” Natalie told her when they were alone.  “You need more practice.”

“You are right, I do need,” Genie agreed.

“And we are going to watch _Aladdin_ ,” Natalie added, and she was already racing to her room to get the DVD.

“Did Flower buy and give father when I get name?” Genie called after her.  The whole thing had been his fault.  First there’d been the thing where the French-Canadian players had started to call her Evgenié out of some French-Canadian logic involving her having a feminized version of a traditional boys name, and she wasn’t sure whose idea that had been, but it might have been Marc’s.  And it was definitely him who had extrapolated the nickname “Genie” out of it.  Once someone thought of that kind of nickname in an NHL locker room it was hopeless.

“I had it already!”  Natalie called back, and she was coming back triumphantly with the DVD.  Genie knew she was a pushover; Ksenia had even scolded her for it a couple of times.  (“You must be sterner with your own children someday,” she’d said.)  But the fact remained she didn’t have it in her to say no, and so she resigned herself as Natalie said, “You are going to practice by reciting all of _your_ lines.”

She did terribly at it, of course.  They did at least have the subtitles on, because the Gonchars usually did (though the language it was in could vary), but the Genie talked way too fast, and Genie was continually tripping over pop culture references she hadn’t heard, even after two and a half years in America.  At least she was making the little girl laugh, and Natalie was also answering any questions about the references she thought to ask about, so long as they were asked in English.  It kind of amazed Genie how many of them she knew.

It was half an hour or so to Natalie’s bedtime when they finished, and Natalie was looking a little tired.  If they did something active for the last half hour she’d probably go without any trouble, which was much, much easier for Genie.  “Want get sticks out?” she asked her as the credits rolled.

“Actually...” Natalie looked uncomfortable for the first time that night.  “I don’t know if I really like hockey that much.  Don’t tell my dad yet.”

“Never tell,” Genie assured her.  “Is okay.”  It was a disappointment, of course.  But, she reminded herself, there were many other things Natalie could do.  “You like figure skate, maybe?  Like mom?”

“Actually,” she grinned, and lit up, her relief clear at Genie’s acceptance.  “I kind of like speed skating.”

“Ice family,” Genie observed.  “Different kinds of ice.  Is good.  You win more Olympic medals, maybe.  You like any speed skaters?”

That question resulted in her talking so fast Genie couldn’t understand every word she said, but it also filled up the half-hour and even the talking exhausted her, so she went to bed without protest. 

 

  1. _Sister-in-Law_ -2015



Genie had to admit, of the many things she had expected to do that day, dealing with one of her fiancée’s fits of pique was not one of them. 

But there he was, sulking around outside, away from the party, having refused to be in the same room as his sister ever since someone had found her a jersey, one way too big for her but she’d been sporting it anyway, probably even enjoying how much seeing it annoyed Sid.

“You congratulate Taylor?”  she called over to him.  “You must.  Is not right a brother does not congratulate his sister when she is drafted by the NHL, just because rivals take her.”

“I’d congratulate her if the Caps took her!”  He exploded.  “But how the hell can you congratulate any goalie drafted by the Flyers?  They’ll ruin her career!”

“They probably took her just to fuck with me psychologically,” he continued, stomping off as Genie ran to keep up with him.  “Probably don’t even intend to sign her.  They’ll hold her rights hostage and she’ll never get in at all!”

“No offer, they lose rights, you know that,” Genie reminded him.  Really, this was ridiculous of him.

“There are ways to maneuver.  They can make her bad offers.  Stifle her somehow.”

She really needed to explain to him why he was being nothing but paranoid.  “Waste place.  Waste pick.  Won’t do, Sid.  Even if do now, eventually, they need get something; they trade.  And...”

She’d made a mistake by mentioning the word “trade” early.  “You’re right; maybe someone will trade for her.  She’s a good goalie; other teams might want her.  Heck, maybe we could get her eventually.  She’s not ready for NHL-level play this year, but in an another year, we can easily make room for a backup goalie then...”  She could see his mind working, trying to shuffle reality back towards that dream scenario where his sister played alongside him and developed under his eye, eventually inherited the starting position, and spent ten years as Pittsburgh’s franchise goalie.  That they had never been likely to be that lucky was something he hadn’t really accepted. 

Genie knew better.  Not that she had any fear of the Flyers ruining Taylor; she simply refused to even contemplate that possibility.  She was kind of surprised that Sid would, though she knew how superstitious he was.  Taylor was a good player and would stay one, and it was as simple as that.  More likely the Flyers would be idiots and trade her, but then she might end up anywhere.

“You go congratulate her?” she asked.

“In a bit,” said Sid.  He still sounded very grumpy.

“Then I go,” said Genie, because she wanted to spend some real time with Taylor on her drafting day.  So far she’d been busy getting congratulated by all the extended family, but they were probably finishing up by now.

Sure enough, she came back in to Taylor being carried around by two of her stronger cousins (though how could they be so strong, when she had gotten so big?), who put her down and patted her shoulders goodbye.

“Will it stop being this amazing anytime soon?” Taylor breathed as they hugged.

“No,” Genie smiled at her.  “But is nothing to when you finally play.”

“It can feel even more incredible than this?  Oh wow...”  The two of them wandered over together to where the TV was still showing the draft, which was now on the 6th round.  “I hope someone takes Mary.  I mean, I don’t know if she’s really that interested in playing with the guys, but still.”

Noone did, but Genie was still with Taylor when the Sabres instead drafted Catherine Dubois, and they cheered and high fived each other over that; they weren’t the only ones in the room.  “I know she was really disappointed she was passed over last year,” Taylor commented.  “And really anxious about this year.  They should change the rules, you know, let North American women be drafted at any age, same as Europeans.”  She pulled out her phone to text a congratulations.  Genie promptly asked for her number.  “I message her,” she explained.  Taylor had no problem giving it to her.

Sid finally came back in just after the draft ended, and Genie left Taylor then to let brother and sister have a moment alone.  It was a good opportunity to duck into a corner, send Catherine Dubois a welcome and contact info, and then pass the number around to all the other girls currently playing the men’s majors and minors, especially the two currently in Rochester.  She followed with Taylor’s number to a few people, thinking as she did it was a pity Dani wasn’t in Philadelphia anymore, but there were three girls in Adirondack at least.  Of course, more people already had Taylor’s number.  Indeed, in many ways things would be much easier for Taylor than it was for most girls, and in terms of mentoring, much as it saddened Genie, she might not be able to make Taylor her priority, at least after that night.

Still, she decided as Taylor and Sid both came back towards her, looking up Dubois’ stats and history could wait until the next day.

 

  1. _Veteran_ -2021



“Good to have you back, Ms. Malkin,” was how the new photographer greeted her as she and Taylor came out in their uniforms-Taylor’s new Red Wings jersey looked good on her-even though Genie had been in the photograph the previous year.  She hadn’t even been pregnant yet at that point; she was pretty sure of that.  Not that anyone was letting her forget what had happened, since everyone else was telling her how good she looked less than three months after giving birth, especially at her age.

She was too happy to let it bother her, though.  Motherhood was wonderful, being back on the ice was wonderful, and so was seeing all the girls again, and seeing how many there were who were going to play at the NHL level for sure, not to mention four more elsewhere who might get into the teams lineups during training camp. (She had always thought they should wait to do the annual photograph the NHL had of their female players each year until after the camps, so they could be included too.  Though then again, if that had been the case last year, the photo wouldn’t have even happened, what with the lockout.)

The only real problem was that she kept needing a moment to remember everyone’s names.  They all wanted to see the pictures of little Igor too, which kept her busy until finally Hilary came in fashionably late, maybe to avoid being mobbed by the younger girls herself, since with Sasha’s retirement, she was the oldest left.

It didn’t entirely work; some redheaded twenty-year-old kid, the youngest there, Genie thought, jumped up, eager to finally meet an idol, perhaps.  Genie watched Hilary greet and shake hands with her, and thought she had gotten a lot more staid than when she’d seen her last.

The redhead eventually ended up between the two of them, and even though she’d already taken advantage of the opportunity to talk to Genie, it turned out she hadn’t run out of things to say.  She wanted to know if it was true she and Sasha had snuck into the Russian men’s team’s quarters in the Sochi village to steal all their opening ceremony hats as a prank (Why wouldn’t that stupid story die?), what did she think about the big summer Pittsburgh-LA trade (she didn’t want to talk about that with this many people around), and what brand of stick would she recommend (Genie was happy to talk about that one, except there wasn’t much time before the photographer called for silence).

The first photo didn’t come out right; it was pixilated on one side.  The second photo failed to get Amanda Kessel’s face; things were at just the wrong angle at just the wrong moment.  The third photo came out with no difficulties, but as the girls all leaned over each other to get a look at it on the photographer’s laptop, they saw him frown.  “What’s wrong?” Hilary asked him, taking on that authoritative tone she’d been constantly wielding since Dani and Hayley had both retired a few years back, because she wanted to be ringleader, and those others who might have been, like Genie herself, didn’t.

When he replied, “I don’t know, exactly...” Noora Raty sighed, “Oh, come on!  Just photo!  Would you be fussing as much if was one of guys?”

“If it was, it probably wouldn’t be used and viewed so much,” the photographer argued, and that was kind of true.  The annual photograph of all the female players in the NHL would be used for articles by media all over the world throughout the year.   “Look, just let me take one more photo.  That’s hardly uncommon, is it?”

He ended up taking three more, all eminently usable, though looking at them afterwards, Genie thought two of the older girls might have been rolling their eyes in the last one.  By then two of the younger girls had somehow managed to get into a whispering argument and it somehow fell to Hilary and Genie to break the two of them up, though Taylor was nice enough to help.  “You two want to go out to lunch?” Hilary asked them as they were the last players to change back into their street clothes.

Taylor agreed before Genie could say anything, and she probably would’ve agreed anyway, but she was aware Hilary was probably extending the invitation for a specific purpose.  Sure enough, after they’d followed her to her favorite lunch place in Brooklyn, she asked Genie, “Is this going to be your last year?”

“Probably,” Genie admitted.  “I decide for sure after Olympics.”  That was the one good thing that had come out of the lockout; the new deal had included a provision guaranteeing NHL players would be able to play in Beijing. 

“All right, then,” said Hilary.  “We need to plan your sendoff.”

“Do not,” Genie tried to protest.

“Do too,” Taylor retorted, and then she knew it was hopeless.  Hilary had probably invited Taylor specifically for the purpose.  They started talking, and Genie resigned herself.  Unless maybe she’d stay longer, just to avoid this.

 

  1. _Captain-_ 2022



When the final horn sounded Genie was the first to reach Anna, both their helmets flung to the ice, to wrap her goalie in a hug before the rest of the team piled on.  A moment after Anna was yelling her ear Liudmila Belyakova was, then Sasha was, then it was all a blur.  The thought was ringing through her head over and over again, _We won an Olympic medal we won an Olympic medal we won an Olympic medal..._

The past few days flashed before her, that semifinal where they kept themselves 1-1 with the U.S. going into the third and thought they might actually make the gold medal game, then 14 seconds in Knighter had knocked one in, and from there it had gone to pieces, and the longest pair of days of her life, everyone thinking about the last tournament, the one where she didn’t get to participate, and the others got so _close_.

“How?” she found herself asking no one in particular, and then again as she turned to hug the coaches, who had joined them out on the ice.  Though she ended up hugging Mr. Yashin instead, and asked a third time: “How?”

He smiled, and answered, “They played for bronze.  You played for gold.”

Bronze was absolutely gold, no question about it.  But as everyone finished hugging it out she became aware that as the captain, it was her job to start the handshake line, and she wasn’t looking forward to that, to seeing Petra Rinne especially, poor Petra, who, like Sasha, had come out of retirement to play at one last Olympics.

But Minttu Tuominen was already waiting, and Genie took Liudmila with her to get the lineup started.  The Finnish captain congratulated her with surprising warmth, and indeed, more than one of the other Finnish girls with their sad faces smiled a little at her, Noora included.  It seemed she was indeed admired and respected.

She outright hugged Petra when she reached her, saying to her, “You do good job, very good.”  She was pleased to hear Liudmila try to say something similar through her very weak English, and to notice that similarly everyone was being especially kind to Petra; Sasha too hugged her.

When she reached the end, she ran into an official, who told her about a change of plans: “Things are behind schedule enough I’m afraid you can’t get your medals now.  You’ll have to wait and get them with the other two teams after the gold medal game.”

Behind her, Liudmila, hearing this, muttered her displeasure, but Genie couldn’t say she minded this at all.  She was sticking around anyway to cheer on Taylor, and she liked the idea of them getting their medals together.

Indeed, she ended up staying in the locker room until Taylor led the charge of the Canadians coming in to kick them out (which at least gave them a chance to exchange congratulations and good luck), and even after that was kept in press until the puck for the gold medal game was literally two minutes away from dropping.  Then, before she could make her mad dash, she heard vaguely that the team had mostly gathered in one of the side rooms somewhere to watch together, without hearing where.  So she knew she needed to at least make an appearance and be with her team for a little while longer before she went to join Sid and their families up in the box.  Her suit jacket under one arm and a fresh jersey for the medal ceremony later under the other, she set out to track them down. 

After opening multiple doors to nothing, as well as one to one of Team Finland’s members doing something less than appropriate with some guy in an Austrian Olympic team jacket and too little else on too small a table, she opened a door to a room that she nearly didn’t bother with because she vaguely remembered it as not being big enough to hold an entire team anyway.  Indeed it wasn’t, but to her surprise, Sasha and Petra were in there instead, the former all but sitting the latter’s lap, because no matter how old Sasha got she _never_ changed, watching the game on a tablet.

Sasha saw her and beckoned.  “Come in,” she said.  “They’re about five minutes in, no score yet, penalty to Canada.  Four saves for your sister-in-law so far.”  She looked again, then added, “make that five.”

She was talking in Russian, of course.  Genie was pretty sure Sasha had now long forgotten most of what English she’d learned.  Idly she wondered if she and Petra now had any languages in common.

“Do you want to join the others at some point?” Genie asked Sasha as she sat down.  “Maybe just for ten minutes or so?”  Of course it wouldn’t be nice to leave Petra alone, but if maybe she didn’t feel like staying, or Sasha could come back to her.

“I know what you mean,” said Sasha.  “But I don’t know.  I think I’m too old for this now.  Too old for screaming and trash talking and whatever squabble Lena and Tania are having now.”  Those two had been Genie’s biggest headache off the ice.  “This is the company I belong in now.  And you know what, Zhenya?  I think you do too.”

“Maybe,” Genie admitted.  Indeed, she was now getting very close to deciding that yes, this was definitely her last season.  A season involving Olympic bronze was a good note to go out on.

“Talk in English, please; I know _you_ can,” Petra snapped at them, and Genie hastily apologized.

She ended up watching the first period with them and the second with the team before heading up to the box for the third.  Then at last came the medals; the weight firm and good around her neck as she watched the Russian flag take its place alongside the two North American ones.  Though one thing about waiting so long to get it was that it meant she and Taylor ended up spending an eternity standing together while every last of both their relations took photos of them.  Except at one point she was pulled away because someone wanted photos of her, Marie-Philip, and Meghan, the three medal-winning captains together.

“Stop looking tired, Genie,” Meghan laughed at her as she arrived.  “You’ve still got at least a few months to go.”

“I won’t be captain during them,” she pointed out.  That would be relieving.  She was proud of what she had accomplished during her four Olympics as Russian team captain, but it was comforting, all the same, to know, now, she would never do it again.  Just as well she’d never had to worry about it day in and day out...

 

  1. _Fellow Russian-_ 2013



Genie shaved while Sid slept, doing a slow, thorough job of it, even doing her pubes, which she’d hardly ever done since she’d been about twenty-one or so.  Still she was too restless to sleep, at least while she was sober.  Vodka usually didn’t make her sleep either, but it was starting to look like her best shot.

She drank the first two shots in the living room.  After that, she hung about the kitchen as she downed three more.  She drank the sixth while staring at the phone and thinking about calling someone.  Between the sixth and the seventh Jeffrey came up to her, and she just petted him for a bit.  After that things started to turn a little fuzzy.

When she woke up the following afternoon, and then after she got through the hangover, she vaguely remembered calling Sanja in the middle of the night (she thought she might have flipped a coin to decide which Sasha to call, or maybe that was just her memory being strange) and possibly wailing at him about losing.  She was torn between the urge to send him a frantic email, begging him not to tell anyone, and the thought that would probably just encourage him. 

That evening Sid fell asleep long before her again, and as she sat on the couch she remembered sitting on during the phone conversation and tried to remember anything more specific.  When Jeffrey wandered past she even asked him for help, but of course he couldn’t provide it. 

At least she hadn’t gotten any kinds of phone calls that would indicate the gossip getting around yet.  Instead she had spent much of the day on the phone with her parents, who wanted to come over to be involved in the contract negotiations, though Genie honestly wasn’t certain if that was a good idea.  She’d noticed whenever her father had been with her at these sorts of things, a lot of people tended to assume they were actually negotiating with him, and that tended to stress him out.  They might do it with her mother too, who would mind less, but still, Tatiana Ovechkin she was not.

When she called Denis, she made sure to do so before drinking at all, though she might have had something during their conversation.  It was a pretty mundane one, anyway; they talked mostly about his plans for the next two weeks.  There were too many subjects they tended to avoid talking about with each other.

She did at least get to bed before midnight this time.  She didn’t think she’d even be too hungover.

The next morning, much to her surprise, she got an email:

_Zhenya,_

_You may not remember this, but night before last/yesterday morning you called me and we had a conversation I have repeated only to Maria and Sasha, both of whom have threatened me with various consequences if I talk about it with anyone else, so I won’t.  I’m very proud of you; you’re rarely as selfish and rude as you were then.  I mean that.  You’re still too nice usually, at least off the ice.  The vodka might not have helped you sleep, but it did do you that favor._

_What I mean by that was you asked me how to handle repeatedly losing badly in the playoffs.  Or I think you were asking me that; you were a little strange about it.  Since it is my duty to help out both my Russian girls in the NHL, I will try to answer this question.  Mostly I’ve kept doing what I’ve been doing unless I’ve known I have to improve this or that.  I don’t think there’s even anything else we players can do.  If there are big problems you can’t fix, you can’t fix them.  You can only fix your own problems, and hope the person whose job it is to fix the big problems fixes them.  Of course it’s hard.  I can’t say it’s not hard, or that there’s any way to make it not hard._

_Except you haven’t lost entirely badly, because you made the third round._

_Sasha and Maria both say hi._

Genie’s first reaction to reading was sheer relief.  She didn’t mind Sasha knowing at all, and she could live with Maria knowing if no one else did.  Her next was she was sorry she’d asked Sanja such a question.  She had no doubt that was what she had asked him; she’d been thinking it the previous night, early enough for her to remember doing so clearly.  But of course he’d taken it in stride.  He was a generous man, in his way.  It said everything to Genie that Sasha admitted how much she missed him in Carolina; he’d been especially good to her...

 

  1. _Fellow Female Russian_ -2009



Sanja thanked her about ten times for agreeing to meet with Sasha before the game like this, but Genie thought he had really done most of the work after the incident.  He’d taken the time to first confront Marc Staal, whom he had apparently believed when he’d insisted he absolutely had not wanted to fight Sasha and didn’t understand why she’d insisted on it, he’d only pulled her jersey loose because he’d been desperate to end the fight before he seriously hurt her, and he’d been shocked by the way she’d just completely lost it.  Then he’d had the much more difficult conversation with Sasha on why she’d done it, and learned what had triggered both her throwing her fists on Staal in the first place and her reaction when he’d gone for her jersey.

She wasn’t entirely sure why it should be her, either.  If Sasha was having flashbacks on the ice, obviously she needed to see a psychologist, not someone who knew nothing about that kind of thing.  And if she wanted to talk about what had happened to her, which Sanja believed she’d never told anybody about before she’d told him, Genie didn’t know if it wouldn’t be smarter to try to talk to Hayley or Manon, who would understand better.  She’d even told Sanja about Hayley, just to make sure he knew about her. (Manon, of course, had talked publically about it in her memoir.)  But Sanja had insisted Sasha needed to talk to someone female who understood Russian, even if Genie wasn’t about to rely on her actually being willing to.

She initially didn’t think she would be, either, when she only brusquely let Genie in and offered her vodka.  But then she started drinking it herself, and perhaps, in the end, after apparently nearly a decade of keeping her secret, she did need to talk about it after all.

“He thought I was a lesbian,” was the first thing she said, and Genie realized quickly enough whom she was talking about, even before she added, “He thought he was fixing me.  I’ve heard they do that a lot in some places.  Too many people in my life have thought I was a lesbian.  Have you ever gotten that accusation, Zhenya?”

“I’ve never directly seen or heard it,” said Genie.  “But...” She drifted off; Sasha knew the rest.  They all got hate mail which their people filtered out so they didn’t have to deal with it; she was pretty sure hers attributed to her any characteristic a woman could have that someone else might not like.  It made Genie glad she was still much weaker with written English than spoken, though she was aware some of it was Russian.  And given how many female hockey players actually were lesbians, especially here in North America, well.

And that left out the little detail that Genie actually wasn’t entirely straight.  But she had the feeling that wasn’t important here, because they were talking about other people’s perceptions rather than reality, and this she’d never told anyone not directly involved.

“It was easier once he quit,” she continued.  “He never was very good.  I was better than him.  He hated that.”  That made sense.  The story that went around about Hayley was that she had been assaulted the day after becoming the first woman to score an NHL goal, and that she’d only signed an extension with the Flames after hearing he wasn’t being resigned, probably for reasons that had nothing to do with her; the Front Office might not have even known. 

“I tell myself, you know,” Sasha continued after a pause.  “That I am big and successful, while he is probably working in a factory at best.  It usually works.  Why should I still feel hurt, when it was years ago, and didn’t stop me from accomplishing anything?”

They were seated together on her couch, and Sasha slouched over towards her.  Genie was long-used to how touchy-feely she was, but as she gently touched Sasha’s hand she was aware that Sasha had often not reacted that well to people being so with her.  She wondered if part of it was preemptive on Sasha’s part, or just a way to make sure she was the one controlling things. “Have you ever been afraid of your teammates because of it?” she asked her.

Sasha was silent, considering the question.  Then she said, “Yes.  I’ve had to be.  I’m not now, anymore, at least not in the way I once was, except sometimes when a new teammate doesn’t seem to like having female ones.”

She then stopped talking abruptly, as if she hadn’t meant to confess so much, and Genie knew she wasn’t going to be willing to say anymore when her next words were, “So, what was the worst day of your youth?”

One confession probably did deserve another, and this was an easy answer for Genie to come up with: “The one when Lesha thought I cheated with that metal magnate.”  She hoped Sasha didn’t pester her for details about that day, though.  It was the only one she could still barely stand to think about.

But Sasha just asked, “Did you?” laughed when Genie hastily shook her head, and changed the subject again.

Which was especially good when, again, Genie wasn’t quite ready to confess to Sasha, or anybody else, that she actually had cheated on Lesha the night before, it just hadn’t been with the magnate...

 

  1. _Mistress-_ 2009



“You know, you’re not the only girl I’ve slept with anymore?  There are fans here that will sleep with male and female hockey players alike.  I think I may be attracted to both men and women.”

It seemed strange, she thought as she said this, that it was a dangerous confession to make to the woman lying limp in her bed after she’d made her come twice, doing everything she’d learned to do in the years since they’d seen each other last.  No longer was she the eighteen-year-old girl dazzled by the luxury within which Oksana had lived and bedded her, deathly afraid the older woman’s husband would burst in at any moment, not finding it funny at all when Oksana had laughed that probably everybody thought it was the husband seducing her right now.  Genie felt like she was the older and worldlier one now, especially here in Pittsburgh; this was the first time they’d been together on her ground rather than Oksana’s.

But when Oksana only sighed and smiled sadly at her, while she certainly could’ve reacted much worse, it only confirmed what she had been pretty sure of already.  Oksana wasn’t like her.  Oksana wasn’t attracted to women normally; she was just sick of men.  Men who had all the money and power, men who expected their women to act the way they wanted them to in every aspect of their lives, and hit them when they didn’t.  Genie didn’t blame her.

Though she did ask then, “Mind if I stay for a while, Zhenya?”

“As long as you want,” Genie assured her.  “You have a home with me, Oksana.  We’ll try to be discreet, of course, but if anybody finds out you’re living here, there’s no reason anyone will think you’re anything other than an old friend of mine, keeping a lonely Russian company after her own divorce.  I’ll even claim I was having an affair with your husband if you want, say he treated us both badly and we forgot our differences over that.”

“Don’t go messing with your image for me, Zhenya,” she replied.  “Say I thought wrongly you were, behaved badly because of it, and am now trying to make amends.”

“If you don’t mind having people think that of you...” said Genie, though she couldn’t help but think she would’ve preferred the alternate story.  Some rich, powerful, older man seducing her would’ve been much closer to her true secret history.

“I don’t,” she shrugged.  “I doubt anyone will care too much about me here.  You were right when you said Pittsburgh is a much safer place than Magnitogorsk; it is in more than one way.”

She looked almost frightened as she said this, and Genie found herself reaching out, taking Oksana’s hand, and asking, “Do you want to stay here permanently, Oksana?”  She could like that, she thought, having her there for good, like a wife.  She’d always loved her in a way, and she knew, there in bed with her, that she could easily completely fall for her.  And even if Oksana wasn’t capable of loving her back in the same way, of all the people Genie had slept with in her life, Oksana had by far been the best to her, and Genie knew she cared for her enough.

But Oksana shook her head.  “It sounds tempting,” she said, “but I don’t think I’d be happy being away from Russia forever.”

“We’ll go back home when I retire,” she said.

“Do you think we could really get away with living together forever there?” asked Oksana pointedly.  “Here, you’re not too famous, and nobody cares, but there, you are, and they will.  Besides,” she added, and she had that sad smile back, “sooner or later, you’d hate that you’d given up the man you really want for me.”

Genie opened her mouth to protest, but Oksana just said, “Don’t.  I saw the way you were looking at him when you introduced us.  And your reaction to his texts.  And if I were in your place, I’d be in love with him too.  Especially after what we’ve both been through.  You love him because he seems to you to be the opposite of Lesha, don’t you, Zhenechka?”

“It doesn’t matter,” replied Genie.  “I’ve never really seen him that interested in girls in the first place, and in any case, I don’t think he’s going to date a member of the team when he’s captain.”

“I wouldn’t give up so easily,” said Oksana.  “No, I wouldn’t be surprised if he comes around to you in the end.  I doubt there’s any girl in the world better suited for him,” she giggled, but then she turned much more somber, and she pulled Genie close as she said,  “But Zhenechka, I still can’t help but be afraid for you.  I still think that in all likelihood, sooner or later, Sidney Crosby will tire of being a robot, and then he will start being a man, just like all the rest of the ones we’ve known.  You can’t get crushed over that.”

Genie supposed she was right.  She ought to remember the idea of her being the more worldly one was as illusionary as that of her being the older one.  Oksana knew and understood men better than her, and she was smart to search out this refuge from them.  Even on her own, Genie sometimes thought being unable to have the man she wanted was just as well.

 

  1. _Champion-_ 2009



At first there was just the sheer joy of winning, their all running towards Flower, who’d been so good and held on so well, and falling into their pile of hugging and cheering and screaming.  Genie wasn’t sure if she actually threw off her helmet and gloves, or if they just magically flew away.  She didn’t even know just whose arms were around her or whose voices were in her ear for the first few minutes.  It didn’t matter; she loved them all, these wonderful boys who weren’t like other boys, because they’d accepted her as one of them and believed she was allowed to make her dream come true right alongside them making their dream come true, and now they all had together.

She didn’t even remember the other big part of this until somewhere within it she ran into Gonch, who reminded her: “First female player ever.”

Of course she’d been aware that if they won, she would be.   But even when she’d believed with every fiber of her being that they would win, that they wouldn’t lose to Detroit two years in a row, that somehow they’d manage it, she still hadn’t really believed she was going to be.  It was too ridiculous, that she should be the one.  It was really sad, actually, that 15 years after Manon’s debut this barrier still hadn’t been broken.  She could hear the North American media fainting in disbelief, too; she was aware the first female player to lift the Stanley Cup was definitely not supposed to be Russian.  She was supposed to be Hayley Wickenheiser, or Danielle Briere, or at least Angela Ruggiero.

It didn’t really sink in even through the handshake line, and Genie wondered if it even would before the Conn Smythe was handed out.  She wasn’t sure who would get that.  She thought it should go to Sid, but he’d done all of the showy stuff too early in the playoffs, so they would probably be fools and not even consider him.  Otherwise at the moment she thought Flower ought to win it, or maybe Max or Jordan. 

But that all blurred together anyway, finishing up with the handshakes and going back to hugging everyone while scanning the audience in spare moments to see if she could spot her family and Oksana, and then Bettman was talking, and saying, “The winner of the Conn Smythe Trophy,” and not even much of a dramatic pause, “is Evgenia Malkin.”

That truly was a shock.  Genie honestly hadn’t thought they’d give it to a female player.  Had she been a man, yes, with the number of goals and such she’d scored, she would’ve been aware of the possibility.  But now someone was directing her to turn around because she hadn’t been watching Bettman, and go over, and as the guys she passed clapped her in congratulations she tried to raise her arms in celebration, but she was really too overloaded to celebrate much.  At least until she had the trophy in her hands and above her head, and then she kicked her leg into the air and cheered, and then she got back to the others, and they were all grinning and cheering, and, well, then celebrating was no problem at all.

Especially not when the Cup was out, the moment was approaching, and first, and what was almost as happy a moment for Genie, because she really was hopeless over him, was seeing Sid, seeing the joy on his face, as he lifted that trophy he’d been born to win over his head for the first time.  His skating back towards them holding it was like the sun coming to warm them all; Genie along with the rest of them was pulled towards him involuntarily.

But the surprises of the night weren’t over.  After thinking Sid would first hand the cup to Bill, Genie instead found herself pushed forward, and part of her seemed to realize what was going on because her arms went up at the right time, but the rest of her could only be aware of being so close to him at this moment, looking into his eyes when they’d probably never in his life been as bright as this, him smiling at her when her hands touched that sacred silver for the first time.  Even when she felt the urge to kiss him, that she couldn’t didn’t seem to matter that much, because she was aware then that there was nothing in the world they could share that could be better than this.

She’d have been lying if she said she’d been completely unaffected by all the derisive comments saying the ladywingers would need their male teammates to help them lift the Cup, and the awareness of how bad it would be if she fumbled it.  And it actually was heavy for a moment, when Sid let go, and the entire weight was resting against her hands.  But then she got it up and over her head.  She hadn’t even thought about screaming; it was just happening because the feeling would’ve made her explode otherwise.  Everyone on the ice was cheering and she could hear several, “You go, girl!”s  She finally spotted her family pressed up against the glass straight across from her, hugging each other and even Oksana, their usual dislike of her long forgotten, and then, it was as everyone had said, the Cup didn’t weigh anything to those who lifted it.

By the time she handed it off to Gonch, and got to watch him light up at getting to lift the Cup at long last, Genie was nearly floating off the ice.  She watched him skate around with it in that state, and somehow ended up standing next to Mario Lemieux.  She thought of that evening less than three years ago when he’d taken her in, a Russian refugee dumped on his doorstep, and given her the chance to do this, he and his team.  She had to hug him too, then, and whisper, “Thank you.”

“No,” he replied, pulling away, and she could see his face glowing too, just like the rest of them, so that he seemed both the wise older figure and yet not so high above her-she understood then why Sid was so attached to him.  “Thank _you_.”

 

  1. _Watcher_ -2011



“It’s officially the tradition now,” declared the Russian TV commentator when the first person Chara passed the Cup to was Angela Ruggiero.   It was still a little amazing to Genie, that two years after she’d become the first female player to win it, already three more had followed in her wake, and one of them had even scored the overtime winner for it, which the hockey reporters hadn’t stopped talking about ever since.

It was good to see, though, and it was also good to see Angela in particular lift it, though bittersweet for more than one reason.  Genie looked around at her family, applauding away, not knowing, as she and the other women in the NHL system alone did, that this was Angela’s goodbye lap as well, that she had decided, when they’d made the final, that if the Bruins won, she would retire from NHL ice.  Not from hockey, she had emphasized.  She had work to do, she’d told them, for women’s hockey in general, to develop opportunities for all women in hockey, on both men’s teams and on their own.  She was seriously worried about keeping women’s hockey in the Olympics.  They all were, though the thought of Angela on the IOC made Genie worry less.

Though her mother, ever perceptive, noticed her subdued reaction anyway.  “Still hard when it isn’t you, isn’t it?” she commented, which, though technically true, wasn’t what Genie was really bothered about.  But she didn’t know how to explain what she was bothered about.  Or why here, in the bosom of her family, she still felt oddly lonely, watching another NHL team celebrate from halfway across the world.

“You’ll just have to get back there next year, won’t you?” grinned her father, and Genie nodded, because that was absolutely true.  “No more tearing your tendons, now.”

“Do you want us to stay a little longer?” her mother asked.  “Your father and I definitely can.”

Genie almost said yes.  The long summer of getting back into shape that awaited her would be a lot easier with them there.  But it didn’t feel right.  She wasn’t even sure why it didn’t.  Maybe she was just feeling the need to completely focus, and sometimes home was too distracting, and her family was home.  “No,” she said, “that’s all right, but I’ll be fine on my own.”

“I don’t think mom wants you to be here with only Oksana visiting you,” Denis whispered to her later, which made her wonder if he suspected.  Though it didn’t matter, since she and Oksana were strictly platonic at the moment, and while normally there was always the chance of that changing, this summer there was a very specific reason it probably wouldn’t. 

“I have other friends here,” shrugged Genie, as she tried not to be angry at her mother.  If she were her, she’d be dubious about the influence of a friend like Oksana on her daughter too.

She kept meaning to check her phone.  She had to congratulate Angela anyway.  But between one thing and another it didn’t happen until she was actually in bed, hearing her brother’s snores in the next room.  Flooded, of course; most of her fellow NHL ladies had sent mass texts to each other.  One of them had linked to the Down Goes Brown blog which had predicted Chara’s behavior beforehand:   _There’s an established order here, so make sure they follow it.  First, the captain.  Second, the captain’s twin brother, or the female player, whichever is applicable.  Next, the sympathetic old guy on the team who's never won the Cup before._   She thought of Gonch; she didn’t see him or his family nearly enough these days.

Also ten texts from Sid.  That was both surprising and not, comfortable and discomfiting.  They’d grown a lot closer these past few months when they’d both been sidelined.  At first that had simply been a matter of enjoying his company and trying not to long for more too much, which she was used to from being friends with him already.  But in the final weeks before the season had ended she thought she had caught him looking at her a few times like...well, like he wanted something from her, or there was something about her that confused him.  And that was when she found herself thinking he had probably never been in love before, so that confusing him would make sense.

She tried not to think too much about that as she read through them, and moved on to texts from her other teammates.  She still didn’t think anything would happen even if she was right, if only because of his C and her A.  But by the time she was done reading through the teammates’ texts, finishing up with one from Gonch’s daughters (or at least from Natalie claiming it was from her sister too), that earlier strange feeling of loneliness was gone.

 

  1. _Sister_ -1997



“Zhenya, you’re going to have to come out of there and talk to me eventually,” she heard her brother say through the door.  She knew that. She couldn’t sit on her bed with the door locked forever, especially when their family’s apartment had only one bedroom.  But still she just sat there and sulked.  He’d beaten her.  Again.  And then he’d betrayed her.

She heard him walking away, which was a relief, until she heard larger footsteps; their father.  She didn’t care if he threatened the belt, though, she wasn’t opening the door. 

But instead he yelled, “Zhenya, open this door now or you won’t play hockey again for two weeks!”

That got her up and running to the door as fast as she could, panicking when she fumbled with the key, but at last she got it unlocked and open.  She was expecting the slap when it came, but at least he didn’t bring out the belt, or ban her from hockey.  Maybe that was because Denis did say, “Don’t be too hard, papa, it wasn’t just that I beat her today.”

“Oh?” their father asked, as their mother came up too.

“Yeah,” he said.  “It was...I beat her in the first game.  Then a bunch of boys came up for another, and they wouldn’t let her play.  Told her to get off the pond, because she was a girl.  And I...” he drifted off, embarrassed.

“He agreed to play with them,” Zhenya explained for him.  “He shouldn’t have.”

“No, you shouldn’t have, Denis,” their mother agreed.  “But Zhenya, that’s no reason to act like this.    Do you think you won’t run into this all the time, if you really want to play hockey?  That half the time you want to play hockey somewhere, they won’t say you can’t because you’re a girl?  You can’t do this every time they do; you’ll never make it to North America that way.  The only thing you can do is just work harder and find another place that will say yes.  Now you both apologize.”  They both did, and thankfully the matter was then dropped.

It was only the next morning, when their mother was driving them to school, that Denis learned over and whispered to Zhenya, “I really am sorry about yesterday.  From now on I’ll insist if they want me to play, they have to let you play too.”  Zhenya wished she could be sure he’d follow through on it when it came time, though, that he wouldn’t forget. 

At least until he then added, “And you know what?  I heard mom and dad talking last night, after we were both supposed to be asleep.  They’re considering actually going out and looking for places for you to play.  I think they’re going to talk about it again tonight.”

Zhenya didn’t really learn much in school that day.  Thankfully, when she and Denis went to play hockey again in the afternoon, no one objected to her.  In the evening it was hard for her to concentrate on her homework, as she told herself she shouldn’t snoop on her parents.  But when she and Denis were in bed, and they could hear them talking softly in the other room, with her father saying, “What do you think about it now?” she couldn’t help it.

“Well,” her mother said, “I don’t like the idea of putting pressure on her, and this would.  But if you really think we might need the money...”

From the bed next to her, Zhenya saw Denis’ head pop out; now they both had their ears pealed.

“Who knows anymore?” sighed her father, thinking, perhaps, of a time their parents’ lives had been much more predictable, before the whole country had changed.  “We have a son with a little sister who he says is now better at hockey than he is; did you ever imagine that happening?  I didn’t.  Any more than I thought I’d see a woman playing professional hockey anywhere, but now they’ve founded a whole league.  We should try to help Zhenya become a professional player.  Even if she doesn’t make the NHL, she might still do things no Russian girl has ever done.  And yes, a few more years, and she may get a scholarship big enough to help all of us.  If she were a boy I’d have no doubt.  Even as a girl it doesn’t seem impossible anymore.”

For a minute or so Zhenya and Denis just stared at each other.  Then he got up, came over to her bed, and clasped her hand.  “Don’t worry,” he said.  “All you have to do is play good hockey.”

“You said that?” she asked him, trying to keep the huge smile off her face and failing utterly.  She couldn’t believe her brother actually would have.

“It’s true,” he shrugged.  “In fact, I think the reason those boys didn’t want you to play was they were afraid you’d be better than them, too.”  He winked at her, and scurried back to bed.

 

  1. _Bro_ -2013



She went to have breakfast with Nealer and Paulie the second week into the shortened season, on a morning when practice was optional, and Sid for once didn’t whine about her not going with him, after she confirmed she was still working out later before they had to catch the plane.  In fact, he even noted it was good for the team for her and Nealer to take these occasional mornings with each other anyway.  Not that this stopped Nealsey from chirping her for coming a much longer way for breakfast than he had.

The conversation started seriously enough, talking about the last game, and how they could further improve their on-ice communication, and stuff like that.  But eventually it descended from subjects like golf and fishing into ones like him begging her for two-touch tips (even if it wasn’t hopeless, did he really except her to give those up?) and scolding her for washing her hair too much, in his opinion.  At that point Paul fled to the sink with all their dishes.

When she insisted with finality, “My hair very nice, thank you,” he insisted back, “Let me see that,” and took a handful of it, which he promptly let go of with a shake of his head.  “I think it’s getting thinner.”

“You need eyes checked,” she insisted, and maybe she laughed a little too loud.  She hadn’t meant to think back to her teen years at that moment, when her hair being grabbed had not been merely a little friendly jostling with a man she ultimately trusted.

Sometimes she thought James noticed, sometimes she thought he didn’t.  This time she wasn’t sure.  But at any rate, he never said anything.  Maybe he figured it was just the awkwardness that inevitably came from treating a girl like physical contact with her really meant nothing more than it would with another guy.  That he did treat her that way was something Genie appreciated about him, in spite of the trouble it sometimes caused.

In any case, he at least changed the subject by mentioning his mother was threatening to come down and decorate all his empty rooms.  She told him she failed to see why this was a bad thing, and he replied her mother must have better taste than his, which Genie would’ve already been certain of.

“So how much longer are you two going to loiter here?” Paulie asked them as he returned from the sink, mainly towards Nealer.

“Look at this, man,” Nealer promptly complained to her.  “Barely time to eat the food off our plates, and already he’s trying to kick us out.”

“He not, you stay for lunch, Lazy,” Genie pointed out, laughing then as he groaned and accused her of betrayal.

“Actually,” Paulie said then, “I’m not saying you have to go in the next five minutes or anything.  In fact, if you really want to stay for lunch, well, maybe we can get Genie here to cook for us.”

“Can’t,” she said apologetically.  “Go to gym earlier.  Besides, Russian food scare you.”

“Does not!”  Nealer protested, and his reactions to it so far had actually been mixed; he’d liked some of the recipes Genie’s mother had taught her more than others.

“But really,” Paul was leaning in.  Genie couldn’t see how he was looking at James, when she saw the latter’s reaction, she turned away, not wanting to intrude on a moment between two very close friends who were probably still very grateful to be there together in Pittsburgh on that day.  “I’m not kicking you out.”

“Thanks, man,” replied Nealer, his voice very warm.  “But actually, I got work to do too.  I’ll go get my bag.”

Genie had to continue to look away then, but now it was to hide her smile, which broadened as he grunted, presumably confused as to why his bag was so heavy.  She wondered how long it would take him to notice the unfamiliar bottles in the place of the ones he’d had in there.  She supposed he wouldn’t leave his bag unguarded around her again, though he ought to realize she wasn’t going to prank him that often.  Just sometimes, when she wanted him to know how much she’d missed him during the lockout.  Heck, he might even use the hair gel, even if it was meant for women.  He might not even notice it was meant for women; it wasn’t like the bottles were pink or anything.  It was a good type of gel too, coming very highly recommended...

 

  1. _Ex-_ 2011



It wasn’t like it was that remarkable a thing, in the end, or that different from what had happened countless times now.  She and Oksana had even effectively dated, on and off, these past two and a half years, and even when they hadn’t been in that kind of relationship, when either she or Oksana had visited each other, it had often ended in bed.  Genie hadn’t had any new boyfriends, after all, and though she knew Oksana almost certainly had, and had cheated on some of them with her, she had never protested or even asked any questions.

This summer had been different, of course, with the awareness that when she went back to Pittsburgh, there was the chance she might start dating Sid.  However low a chance it seemed to be to her, that simply couldn’t be ignored.  But in the end, it was that which caused Oksana, when she dropped in three days before Genie’s flight, to climb on top of Genie at exactly 11 o’clock in the evening on the couch and whisper, “If this is my last chance, I’m taking it,” before kissing her, and Genie was actually better at saying no to Oksana than she was at saying no to a lot of people, but that wasn’t saying much.

“You know I still don’t think it’s going to happen,” Genie said to her when they were done, and lying in bed together.  The room felt better than it had all summer.

“You’re afraid to,” shrugged Oksana.  “It would hurt too much if you thought it would, and then it didn’t.  But as for me, Zhenechka, all I can think is that I approve of him, and that I hope you don’t mind inviting me to the wedding.  I want to see you that day.  I’ll always love seeing you glow.”

Her smile was the warmest it had been all night as she said this, and Genie found herself saying, “If I ever marry anyone, Oksana, of course you’re invited.”  For a moment she worried if a prospective husband would object to this if he knew the truth about her, though she could hope Sid wouldn’t do that, at least. 

But then she decided she wouldn’t be happy spending her life with such a man anyway.  Not when it was impossible to describe all the ways in which Oksana had been so important to her, and always would be.  Genie had only understood after it had all been over how she’d helped her survive those last worst months with Lesha, she’d known from the start how good she’d been to her during their best dating period in 2009, and even when it was clear she would end as Genie’s friend only, it had only made her more loyal as one.  Indeed, her directly saying she approved of Sid meant more than Genie would’ve admitted to anyone.

“Are you still going to the orphanage tomorrow?” she asked.  “I heard you were.”

“I’ll be spending most of the day there,” she said.  “Would you like to come with me?”

She didn’t think Oksana would.  To her surprise she seemed to seriously consider it for a few moments.  But then she said, “No, I don’t think I can.”  When she didn’t say why, Genie didn’t ask.  It might be something as simple as a scheduling conflict, which might also be one where Oksana didn’t want Genie to know the details.

Especially not when later, when they had gotten up again, and she said, “I hope you remember what I said, though, about Sid, when we were reunited two and a half years ago.  I’m sure he’d tell you that Canadian men behave better, but well, their society implies the same about adultery and how they don’t do it, and haven’t two married Canadians seduced Sasha now?”

“They have,” Genie conceded.  “I think that’s more common among hockey players of all nationalities anyway.”  But that, she supposed, wasn’t really likely with Sid, who wouldn’t be away from her too much, the way most hockey players were away from their wives and girlfriends.  Not to mention she was actually hoping that should they become a couple, he wouldn’t view sex with her as a chore, the way he’d always seemed to view it when talked into going and picking up.

Which Oksana was ultimately aware of too, because she persisted, “No, he may not cheat on you, but at the very least, he’ll probably want to keep you in North America as much as possible.”

“He couldn’t entirely,” said Genie softly, as she thought about that other problem with anything happening between her and Sid.  That, as it had with Lesha, it might end with her deserting him when she fled the continent, this time whenever she retired.  She supposed, when it came down to it, that she might do that to two different men, both of whom she’d loved, only showed she was unsuitable for marriage anyway...

 

  1. _Anomoly_ -2001



“Certainly your daughter is good at hockey, Mrs. Malkin,” said Mrs. Kurbanova as she drove.  “I never denied that.  She may even be better than my son, though I wouldn’t assume that just from watching one game.”

From the backseat, Zhenya allowed herself to smile at Roman.  All the things he’d said to her, and now even his own mother was saying otherwise.  Sure, she knew she wasn’t supposed to get upset over such boys, because if she got upset over all of them she’d always be upset, but he’d been particularly mean.  Now, he did not look happy at all.

Except then his mother continued, “But I do wonder what she gives up for it.  Has she ever had a boyfriend?”

“She’s a little young for that yet,” shrugged Zhenya’s mother, “and of course she doesn’t have much time.  Remember she trains a lot more than her teammates.”

“Yes, yes, because she’s going to North America,” and Mrs. Kurbanova sounded far too skeptical as she said this.  “But my dear Mrs. Malkin, have you thought about what it might cost her?”

“Nothing that isn’t worth it, if it’s her dream,” replied her mother.  “You have to make sacrifices for this kind of dream.  We’ve always known that.”

“Throwing away a proper life is worth it?” Mrs. Kurbanova now sounded even more skeptical.  “Mrs. Malkin, has it occurred to you that when your daughter is old and her hockey career is done, no one will ever want to marry such a girl?  What man wants a girl unmarried at that age, who’s big and bulky and has spent years getting naked in locker rooms with twenty men at once?  If she makes money, maybe some men will court her for that, but then they’ll take it, and leave her with nothing.”

Zhenya had never thought of that.  She waited anxiously for her mother’s response, but her mother said only, “It’s her choice.  It might not be that bad,” which suddenly wasn’t enough.  And then she looked at Roman again, who just smirked, looked her up and down, and nodded again.  And she knew Mrs. Kurbanova was telling the truth; most men didn’t want girls like her.

But many of the female players she followed were married, she reminded herself.  One of them even had two children and was apparently now expecting a third.  Though as Zhenya recalled, that particularly woman had married the man she’d been dating since they’d been fifteen, only a year older than Zhenya herself.  Maybe she’d been smart enough to realize that men who would be willing to marry her were really rare, and so kept the first one she’d found. 

Perhaps, thought Zhenya, she herself should do the same.  But it might be even harder for her than it was for all those Canadian girls, because if she happened to find that man anytime soon, he’d have to be willing to travel with her to America, and if she met him there, he’d eventually have to come back with her.  And she knew that was something women did, not men.

But there wasn’t time to think about it anymore; they’d arrived at the rink.  As Roman hurried in, Zhenya stayed long enough to hug and kiss her mother, and also to see at least one member of the staff was coming in; she always felt safer if she knew there was one close by.  Her teammates had never done anything worse to her than once destroying her skates, and another time one of them had groped her, but even at fourteen, she knew there was always the chance one of them would try to do much worse.

“Remember,” her mother whispered to her, “you’re too young to worry about your husband yet anyway.  I’m sure he’ll come eventually, though he may take longer than other girls’ husbands.  You’ve got work to do in the meantime.”

Maybe when she was forty?  But how would she have children, then?  That was such an overwhelming thought she couldn’t think about it only hours before a game, because she did really want them someday...

 

  1. _Mother_ -2024



She’d dozed off again when she heard footsteps and her son’s voice asking, “Mommy?” followed by her husband’s cautious, “Genie?”  She opened her eyes to the two of them, Igor riding on Sid’s back, by the bed, watching her anxiously.

It broke her heart, because she wasn’t ready to break the news to him yet.

“The nurse said you were doing well,” said Sid, “and could even get out of the hospital tonight.  Did the doctor tell you what exactly happened?”

He had, but Genie hadn’t really understood him.  Even after a decade and a half of dealing with the language, her English wasn’t up to dealing with medical terminology.  She’d only understood the last part, the part she now had to tell him.  “So sorry, Sid,” she started, and her voice caught.

“Don’t be,” said Sid.  “Miscarriages just happen sometimes, no matter what you do, and I think miscarriages that go this badly usually are the kind that nothing could’ve prevented.  And anyway, you did everything the doctor told you to do.  It’s hard having kids at your age.  We’re doing everything we can.”

“No, Sid,” she insisted.  “No...can’t.”  She almost couldn’t go on.

But then he panicked, and said, “No, wait, Genie, you’re not about to tell me you have a week to live or something, are you?”

“No!”  That got her talking.  “No, not that.  But...no more babies.  Doctor say would put my life in danger.”

With the bad news delivered, she watched Sid briefly turn his head as he took it in, and looked at Igor, the only child she would ever bear him now.  At least she’d given him his son.  He would forgive her, she knew, no matter how much it crushed him.  It made her feel guiltier.

Except that it only took him another moment before he said, apparently completely untroubled, “All right, we’ll have to adopt the rest then.”

She couldn’t but ask, “Is...all?  No problem for you?”  She couldn’t believe that.  It was never the same for a man, if he wasn’t father to his own children; she’d been made aware of that from a very young age.

He shrugged.  “I figured we’d have to adopt at least a couple anyway, since your clock was probably going to run out before we had all the kids we wanted, unless we were lucky enough to have triplets or something.  And it’s a good idea, too.  I mean, how many orphanages have we both visited now?  Unfortunately we can’t adopt anyone from Russia right now, but they’ve got to repeal that law sooner or later, and we can wait.  Actually, that’s another good thing about adopting; we don’t have to rush it before you get any older.  We can go at our own pace, and keep on going as long as we’re up to it.”

That was all true, including that Genie had hoped to adopt as well as bear children; she supposed she’d imagined them doing both.  Still, it was incredible that for Sid, it was that simple.

And then when he did look disturbed, it was before he said, “You’re not too heartbroken about it, are you, Genie?  We’ll still have a big family.  And won’t it make you a lot happier, that now when we visit the orphans, at least here in North America, we’ll always have the option of giving one of them a home?  Haven’t you always wanted to do that?”

“I have,” Genie admitted, as that fact sunk home, and it made her feel a lot better.

Still she waited the entire rest of the day for the other shoe to drop with Sid.  But it never did; he just got happier when the doctor came back and repeated to him that she was in good shape.  He wheeled her out of the hospital with Igor on her lap, and she watched him spend the evening playing ball hockey with their son in the living room, seemingly unbothered even when they knocked one of the lamps over (at least now they always bought more durable ones, so breakages had become rarer).  And when before they went to sleep, he kissed her and whispered about how scared he’d been for her, she had to finally believe that he really didn’t care.

It was Sid, she finally thought as he rolled away.  He reacted differently to everything than most men did...

 

  1. _Girlfriend_ -2011



As soon as Sid was gone, Genie ran to the kitchen and to her vodka supply.  She wanted to be as drunk as possible even before he reached Mario’s, because she was dead certain that was where he was going.  She didn’t want to think about he’d say to him, or how he’d react. 

She’d blown it.  He’d kissed her; he’d been the one to initiate it.  Genie had tried not to be too passionate when she’d kissed back, but after over two and a half years of longing, she hadn’t been able to control herself.  When they’d parted, she’d seen how freaked out he’d been, even before he’d said he had to go do something and fled.

“Maybe he would’ve freaked out anyway?” she asked Dixie as her first two shots started taking effect.  “I can’t know, can I?”  Dixie just meowed, and jumped off the counter.

She thought it was an hour and a half or so later, and she was debating if there was anyone in the world she could call to talk about this besides Oksana, who at this hour in Russia really needed her beauty sleep, when the doorbell rang.  “I hope that’s not Mario,” she commented to Jeffrey as they went to answer the door together.  Given how protective he was of Sid, it seemed perfectly possible in that moment that she’d just been traded.

But it was Sid, and the first thing he did when the door was closed behind him was kiss her again, though this time she didn’t dare move.

“I’m sorry,” he said to her.  “I shouldn’t have run out on you like that; Mario made that very clear to me.  I mean, I went to see him, and I hope you don’t mind that I told him.”

“Is okay; I scare you,” she pointed out.  “I make too much.”

“You’re too drunk for this conversation, aren’t you?  God, Genie, I am so sorry, I’ve completely screwed this up.”

“No, I screw up, because I want Sid so badly.”  At least when she was drunk she felt able to explain this.  Kind of.  “Want for so long, go for too much.”

“You did not,” he insisted.  “Listen, Genie, we’re doing this.  This is happening.  So long as you’re willing to forgive me for running out just now, anyway.  I hope you’re not so drunk you don’t remember this tomorrow morning, but if you are I’ll tell it to you again then.  If you want me, you’ve got me.”

It took a moment or so for Genie to comprehend what he was saying.  Then she supposed she ought to kiss him, but all she could really do was grin.

But then a moment later she couldn’t help but protest, “But I am teammate.  Alternate.”

“I talked that over with Mario, too,” he said.  “It’s not like we don’t have concerns over it, of course, but he thinks we’re both dedicated to the team enough that we can handle it.  That’s going to be something we’re going to have to talk about in the morning when you’re sober, along with everything else.  But let’s not worry about it tonight.”

So instead they sat in the living room and made out for a little bit, but it was late, and they had practice the next morning, and also Sid was still a little stiff; he may have never done this in particular before.  She wasn’t surprised when he said he’d sleep in the guest bedroom that night.

She woke up the next morning with an awful hangover, and the thought that she’d had the most wonderful dream, that Sid had kissed her and appeared at her door (after kissing her, but dreams weren’t linear), and told her it was happening.  If her head hadn’t been pounding so much, if she wasn’t now facing down being in this state with a morning practice scheduled, she might have lain there to savor it.  But instead she had to get up and find the aspirin.

Then she saw it was next to her bed, along with a glass of water, and realized Sid might have put those there, and it might not have been a dream.

She gulped down the medicine, and staggered out in nothing but the shirt she’d been wearing the previous night, along the way remembering Sid saying he’d sleep in the guest room.  The worst headache in the world wouldn’t have stopped her from running there as fast as she could manage and yanking the door open, waking Sid from where he had indeed been sleeping there.  She lurched forward with no coordination until she hit the bed and half-fell onto it.

He took her hand and asked groggily, “How much do you remember from last night, Genie?”

“Enough,” she replied, and fell the rest of the way. 

Her head was pounding, neither of them could coordinate, so it was clumsy, and both their morning breaths completely stunk. 

It was the best kiss she’d ever had.

 

  1. _Cook-_ 2004



Zhenya’s mother has started with the salads, walking her daughter through the creation of _vinaigrette_ and _olivye_ , and being very pleased when Zhenya had gotten fairly good at making both by the time she was drafted by the Pittsburgh Penguins.  But after that she amped the cooking lessons up, even though with a lockout looming Zhenya probably wouldn’t be moving to the States anytime soon, and anyway, while she initially thought she might be ready for the NHL, that had been foolish of her.  Lesha had had no trouble talking her out of it, showing her all the ways she just wasn’t yet.

A week after the draft was the first serious attempt at _solyanka_ where Zhenya was the one making it, rather than merely helping her mother as she’d done throughout her teen years.  She managed to burn the onions and cucumbers, and her mother lamented she hadn’t been prudent enough to stock more before trying this.  Zhenya braced herself also for the laments of what would her daughter eat, stranded all alone in America where no one knew how to cook good Russian foods, but those actually never came.  Maybe she figured Zhenya would live off salads if all else failed.

In the end she sorted out which of the onions and cucumbers were still somewhat edible and they used those.  When the soup was in the pot and cooking, her mother said to her, “You’ll have to figure out your schedule so you can give it time to cook, and of course you have to add the olives and mushrooms at the right time.  I’m afraid this isn’t the sort of dish you can cook for yourself on game nights.  I’ll teach you _okroshka_ next.   I know you don’t like that as much, but you can’t deny it cooks quicker.”

“Very good, mama,” said Zhenya, not having the heart to tell her she already had the feeling that on game days she’d mostly eat simpler American foods, especially if the team nutritionists recommended them.  She had the feeling some of the heavier Russian items would not meet with the approval of those experts.  Maybe she could allow herself some herring.  If that was even sold in Pittsburgh.

“I think we may have to come over with you for the first couple of months,” she was continuing, “especially if you sign when this lockout business is over; give you some extra time to learn how to take care of yourself.  It is not an easy thing to do, for a girl your age to live all alone, without a man to even protect you, even if you may not need his money.”  She considering the simmering soup sadly.  “And to think, the men in America wouldn’t properly appreciate your ability to cook them this.  They probably all eat hamburgers all the time.”

Zhenya couldn’t respond to that either.  She couldn’t talk about what happened between her and Lesha when she stayed late at his place, officially to go over her stats.  He’d forbidden her to, and she wasn’t ready to anyway.  And how could she tell her mother that even though she knew she would have to give him up when she went over, she didn’t want any other man, and couldn’t imagine wanting any other man?  All else aside, her mother would scold her for foolishly clinging to what could not be kept in that way.

Her mother, however, has turned her attention back onto the soup, holding a hand above it to check the temperature.  “I think it’s at full heat now,” she said, sounding very pleased.  Zhenya remembered when she’d been twelve, their stove hadn’t been very good and had taken an eternity to warm up.  One of the first thing they’d bought when Zhenya had gotten them money was a new one.  “Don’t forget the time on the clock right now, Zhenya.”

Four hours later the whole family dined on the soup Zhenya had made, and they all agreed it wasn’t as good as her mother’s, which was a given with the partly burned onions and cucumbers, but still pretty good for a first attempt.

 

  1. _Teammate_ -2011



One of the first things Genie had realized that morning after their first kiss, even before they sat down after breakfast to seriously talk things out, was that being with Sid meant she was going to have to fit herself into his routines.  Of course they already had the friendship, plus their bump right before taking the ice, but there was a lot to map out.  They negotiated and brainstormed and argued all through the two and a half months that his concussion ended up providing them with.  At one point they even had to call in Nathalie as a mediator.

When it finally came time to execute the new gameday routine, however, they had the whole thing planned out and talked through and memorized, which made it surprisingly comfortable.  She was in and out of the shower before he was even up, and the hot parts of breakfast were cooked by the time he was done washing.  In return, he did the other morning chores while she walked Jeffrey.  En route to practice, they kept the conversation strictly to the Islanders; Genie had to admit, that really did help her focus.  They relaxed the conversation topics a little more en route to the gym, but kept the talk to a minimum through their workouts. 

They took their pregame naps separately; much as Genie regretted it, that was pretty much common sense.  After waking, he gave her ten minutes extra to sleep, then gently shook her awake.  Before he put the car in drive, they took hands and squeezed for a split second, a gesture that was between one done by teammates and one done by lovers.

The nervous moment was when they arrived at the Northwest Entrance and stepped just inside for the most notable part of the pregame routine.  They had resigned themselves to their teammates finding out about the relationship sooner or later (and Flower had already), and they would do it even if they were there.  But they kind of didn’t want to go telling everyone just yet, so it was relieving when there was no one there to see as they gently took hold of each other and kissed, slowly and gently, chastely; a kiss goodbye. 

They nodded as they parted; from that moment, until the final horn, they were to be no more to each other than teammates.  Then they both turned and walked their own ways, her, the normal quickest route to the dressing room taken by most of the team, him, the longer particular path he always took.

The quickest route, maybe, but long enough for her to spare a moment to contemplate how well this would really work.  Well, it ought to so long as they were keeping the relationship concealed.  But if the world ever found out, she wondered if she would forever be able to resist the temptation to steal a kiss after goals and such.  That might be a negotiation still to come.  She’d accepted that already; Sid required it and he was worth that.

And it wasn’t all bad anyway, she reminded herself.  After all, the last part of the gameday routine would be sex, be it celebratory or consolatory.  And given how Sid was wary of sex in the days before playing otherwise, she suspected their sex life from there on in was pretty much going to consist of that.  There would probably be times in the future when that would annoy her, though for the moment, she could only feel amusement, and fondness, and the thrill of anticipation.

For now, things from that point on went as they always did, except maybe she felt a little more warmth in her heart as she and Sid’s helmets touched before they took to the ice.  She remembered that first time when they’d had to settle who got to go out last, and she’d said to him, “Me, four years Russian women league,” because she had four years in her grown-up league and he still only had one, and surprisingly he’d let that be the final word. 

She actually would have let him go out last that special night, but routine was routine for both of them now after five years, so she went out last as she was nearly deafened by the cheers for him, which just made her heart rise up further.  By the time he scored his second goal of the night, Genie was in heaven, but then, so was everyone else in the building, except the Islanders.

Post-game ended up going exactly as it had, too, if only because of all the teammates and cameras around.  It was hardly the first time he’d been her ride out of there either.  But then the first difference was him actually breaking the decided routine, when the first thing he did once they both got into the car was pull her half into his lap for a kiss.  Not that she objected.  Especially not when they parted, and she looked into his face, so bright and happy and free of the cloud that had always been at least a little bit on it for nearly a year.

But they had to get back to the routine, so she just asked, “Hairbrush?”  One of the odder discoveries of the past two and a half months was that Sid really enjoyed brushing her hair out, and since it was always a mess after games, they’d agreed he’d start doing it then.  Sure enough, he pulled one of her hairbrushes out of the glove compartment, and told her to turn around.  She tried to stay in his lap, but ultimately had to move to give him room to maneuver.

 

  1. _Ladywinger_ -2006



Though she’d spent most of her time since arriving in Pittsburgh getting used to playing on the wing, and all the Penguins centers were better ones than most of those she’d run into her previous hockey days, Zhenya still felt a moment of disorientation when she took her first ever NHL regular season shift with a faceoff coming up, and she wasn’t the one taking it. And even when that passed, there was the first moment of play, when all these men were moving around her, and it wasn’t even like she was smaller than them, though maybe she was a bit more slender, but she wasn’t used to opponents this _big_.  There were several points during that first shift where her primary thought was _I can’t see anything!_   It was not the best shift of her career.

For her second shift, where the lines changed while play was ongoing, she was more prepared.  As she jumped over the boards she took quick stock of the five Devils players, and how big each of them were.  She caught how one of the D-men was looking at her, and when the puck was on her stick she was prepared to try to dodge the hit.  She didn’t quite succeed, but at least she stayed on her skates, and a moment later was after the puck again, idly thinking the audience might be overreacting just a tad; it had been a perfectly clean hit.

 _Skate faster_ , she had told herself even before Mr. Therrien greeted her with it on her return to the bench.  On her third shift, she skated as fast as she could manage.  That was a good shift.  It meant she was absolutely exhausted by the time the first period was over, though.

Still, from the start of the second period things were easier.  The guy who had hit her in the first period got hit himself early on, and hard. She supposed might not have been entirely called for, but she was grateful for it anyway. She was less happy when the Devils scored, though.

By the time the period was winding down it was all almost forgotten, at least when Zhenya was on the ice, though her limbs were really starting to ache when she was off it, and that wasn’t even taking into account the bruising the hit had left her with.  She remembered Alexandra Semina warning her about how banged up she was going to get, in the email she’d sent her welcoming her to the NHL. She had recommended the introduction of copious use of hot water into her life.  Still, ice beneath her skates and the stick in her hands and especially the puck on it drove the pain off as well as anything. 

Certainly she wasn’t feeling any of that, well, not much, when she was flying into the Devils’ zone with the puck coming from Mark Recci, and even if the two opponents in front of her were big, she was quick enough now to get the puck back to Recci when he reached the net.  He wasn’t at an angle to take a shot, though, and she wasn’t sure what happened then, because everything in the NHL went so _fast,_ but next thing she knew it was back on her stick.  When she first sent the shot off, she thought Brodeur would probably stop it, but somehow the puck got between his legs, and suddenly there it was, in the net, and she had put it there.

The feeling was nothing like it had ever been before, not even when she had gotten the chance to represent Russia internationally.  The goal horn going off seemed to be in time with the world around her exploding, her heart exploding, and she had to jump and scream with the sheer joy of it.  Recci and Ryan Whitney reached her first for the hug, and after years of suppressed hostility from teammates jealous of her, the sincerity of their congratulations was another shot to her system.  So was doing the skate down the team bench the way she’d watched other players do on TV countless times.  She was so close to floating the announcer officially declaring she’d scored the goal actually had no effect, since by then it was impossible for her to get any higher.

She was so happy she didn’t even notice all her aches and pains and fatigue anymore, at least for the rest of the period, though as they marched off to the locker room, they started to return.  But even that was welcome, when accompanied by the smiles of her teammates (she didn’t think all of them actually meant it, but more than enough of them did), and the readiness, tired or not, to charge right back out for the third period and win the game.  Now, and in a way she hadn’t quite before, Evgenia Malkin felt that this was playing in the NHL.

 

  1. _Center_ -2013



When she got the puck from Chris’ chip, it was too easy, no Hurricanes in the way as she charged down the ice.  It made it easy to keep track of where Nealer was, heading for the other zone himself, waiting patiently for her to pass.  Her immediate vicinity didn’t stay free of Hurricanes for long, of course, but still the two of them between her and her winger left the space open, and when she sent the puck, Nealer was ready.  He took care of the rest; a moment later the goal horn sounded, and the hats started coming down.

She felt a little giddy all through the fist bump line, and was happy to see James grin the way he did.  She didn’t think he was as excited as he’d been when he’d scored last year’s hat trick, but he was still very happy.  “Not bad, Lazy,” she told him when they reached the end of it.

“Well, not all of us can be Wonder Woman,” he retorted, “but I do my best.”

They scored three more goals before the night ended; it was a complete blowout.  One of her teammates asked Genie if she was disappointed she’d only scored once, which was silly.  Nealer chirped her more over that, continually lording about how he’d been the one scoring all the goals this season (ignoring, of course, that he’d been playing a lot more games than her).  She told him she’d still kick his ass eventually, and he responded dramatically about how frightened he was.  Sid pointed out how Nealer really did owe two of the night’s goals to her, then Chris objected, saying Nealer completely owed the third to him, and Genie conceded that one, because that had been a good chip, though of course Nealer didn’t.  It was fun.

Even when Flower had to comment, “You’re just jealous, Nealer, because you know which of the two of you is certain to get laid tonight,” causing both her and Sid to blush.  When had the team found out about that part of the routine anyway?  Sid tried to keep himself quiet when they were on the road; he really did.

But after a game like that, they first all ended up going out together to celebrate, and she, Paulie, and Sid each bought Nealer a drink.  After downing the third he became determined to prove Flower wrong and spent a while calling out to any girl that walked past, which was not the most effective way to attract their attention.  It caused Paulie to turn to Genie and say, “I think he needs your help again.”

It wasn’t the first time she’d played wingman to one of her teammates; Max had especially found her useful that way.  So when she headed to the bar for another drink, she scanned the patrons, spotted an unaccompanied feminine back with Nealer’s jersey on it, way too large to fit its wearer, and approached.

The woman’s eyes lit up when she saw her, and she immediately introduced herself as Elizabeth Lee.  Before Genie could even say much to her, she found herself led back to the bar, sat down on an empty stool, and Elizabeth wanted to talk about how many of the Penguins’ games she’d been to and how often she’d watched her score, and also how she was wearing her boyfriend’s jersey because her own was in the wash.  So it looked like Genie’s original intentions definitely weren’t happening, but at least Elizabeth was intelligent and knew a lot about hockey, and she couldn’t help but enjoy the conversation, especially when the other woman expressed a wish her niece was there.  “She dreams of the NHL, you know,” she said, and hearing about that was always worth anything to Genie.

Still she felt kind of sheepish when she finally got back to the team, but Nealer was gone by then anyway.  “One of the girls finally responded,” Paulie explained.

“Lucky Lazy,” Genie laughed. 

“Well, he did score a hattrick tonight; that always helps.  I just hope I don’t have to feed them both tomorrow.”

She ended up texting him Paulie’s hope for the next morning on the cab ride home.  _Hope you read in morning, I know sleeping already,_ she added, then put her phone away, content to wait until the morning herself to read his insulted defense of his prowess.

 

  1. _Enforcer_ -2018



She actually didn’t see the hit happen, because at that moment she was trying to listen to her two wingers yelling at her about what to do on their next shift, though the arena was really getting too loud for them to succeed.  But she heard the roar of the crowd, followed by the sudden hush, and turned her attention back to the ice just in time to see the players gathering around the crumpled Olli.

“What happen?” she asked Sid, who was sitting on her other side.  She tried to keep calm, but already she could feel the anger building.

“Dirty hit,” growled Sid.  “Manning.  Look, it’s up on the jumbotron.”

It was indeed.  Genie watched as he skated into Olli.  Later, when she would watch it again, she would think that at the very least he probably hadn’t planned for the head contact, but when she looked at the ice again, and saw the way the referees were going, the realization that there wasn’t going to be any penalty was a punch to her gut, and the rage started to burn.

Olli at least was able to leave the ice on his own power, but one look at his dazed face and all Genie could think was she was going to make Manning pay.

It took too long before she was on the ice the same time as him.  Later she would think that was on purpose on Mike’s part.  But finally late in the game when they were up 4-1 it happened, and then Manning was right there, and so were the boards. 

From the way Genie watched the referees confer after, she suspected she would’ve gotten a worse penalty had she been male.  One of them looked pretty cross when she only got two minutes.

The team killed it off, thankfully, and the score stayed as it was for the rest of the game.  Mike scolded her for taking such a stupid penalty, but that was okay.

Their coach wasn’t the only one who was bothered, though.  One of the rookies kept glancing at her in shock and confusion all the way back to the locker room.  Tanger noticed, sidling up to him and saying, “Not suddenly developing a crush on the captain’s girlfriend, are you?”

“No, no!”  gasped the rookie hastily.  “But...” Then he leaned in and Genie couldn’t hear exactly what he was whispering, but Ranger’s smirk told her all she needed to know.

Especially after she heard his response, “Oh, that’s nothing compared to what happens when someone makes a dirty hit on Sid.  Or even gets in the general vicinity of his head or neck, for that matter.  Surely you noticed last time we played the Caps how Tom Wilson still gives her a very wide berth.  Hell, you should’ve seen the catfight that ensued a few years back when old Angela Ruggiero breathed on him wrong once, and when Bully usually doesn’t fight the other girls because she’s bigger than most of them.”

“Wasn’t just breathe,” Genie felt the need to protest.  She actually couldn’t remember just what Angela had done that time anymore, but she was pretty sure it had been worse than that.  She had a vague memory of thinking later she had overreacted, though.  That had been back when she’d only started to realize just how strong her protective feelings towards Sid had been.

“No, of course not,” laughed Tanger.  “She breathed hard, didn’t she?  Shame on me for not remembering.  But seriously, kid, be glad for Genie’s protective streak.  One day she’ll be protecting you.  I think it may even be the new thing, as the replacement for the old enforcers.  The teams will all sign big girls with ferocious maternal feelings towards any teammates a centimeter shorter than them.  Opponents will tremble at the thought of their wrath.  After all, no creature on this Earth is more dangerous than a mother who feels you’ve threatened her children...”

 

  1. _Mama Bear_ -2034



From the front of the stands Genie had a clear view of exactly what happened, and there was no dispute about it in her mind: the other boy had attacked her son.  She didn’t even think about it after that.  She delayed only long enough to settle Xiaoyang back into her stroller, then flipped herself over the boards (she was getting old enough for that not to be an easy feat, but she could still do it), and strode over, heedless of how many times she nearly slipped on the ice, to where thankfully to the coach had split Jasper apart from the other boy, but was now scolding them both.

“Excuse me!”  she cut in.  “Why are you going after my son?  He did nothing wrong!  He was only defending himself!”

The tired, exasperated look the coach gave her reminded her of many of the linesman from her own playing days.  It did not impress her.

Before he could answer the other boy yelled, “He punched me in the stomach!”

“Liar!” Jasper yelled back.

“I didn’t see it,” Genie added in support.

“Well of course you wouldn’t!” the other boy retorted.

“Rules are rules, Mrs. Crosby,” the coach insisted.  “No fighting.  Both of you, penalty box.”

“Together?” demanded Genie, appalled.  After this boy had gone after her son, who had been doing no wrong, he would be pinned up with him for who knew how long?  If nothing else, she was sure, they ought to have separate boxes.

“Rest assured we will be watching closely,” said the coach, and he spoke in the kind of tone Genie recognized from all the men who’d coached her during her own career.

“I will be too,” she told them, and glared hard at the other boy, since she wasn’t allowed to do anything else to him.  Very fortunate for him, that.

Unfortunately, though not really to her surprise, Jasper made it clear on the drive home that her interference had not been welcome.  She endured all the ranting about how now the other boys would view him as weak for needing his mummy to protect him, words that coming from one’s son must simply be waited through.  But then, when they were nearly home, he made her hair stand up when he added, “You’re nearly as bad as Jerry’s mother.”

“What does Jerry’s mother do?” she demanded, more sharply than she intended.

“Nothing,” Jasper said quickly, in a muted tone that spoke of that being bullshit.

“Jasper, what has she done?” she demanded again as she pulled into the driveway, then made sure the locks were in place, before adding, “You’re not leaving this car until you tell me.”

She looked towards the backseat, which made Jasper turn his face away and look determinedly towards Xiaoyang’s seat, maybe hoping she’d start crying and force Genie to leave it, but she remained completely quiet.  “Has she hurt you in any way?” she pressed.  She’d had nightmares already, and she knew it was something Sid worried about as well, that their son might go through what they, and Sid especially, had gone through as teenagers.  They still didn’t know if that had influenced Igor’s decision to quit.

Finally, reluctantly, he said, “She...it was only once.  I was supposed to pass to Jerry during a game but I didn’t, and scored instead, though coach was still mad at me.  She found me after the game and got into my face, talked about how she had always hated dad and I was just as bad, jealous of how good Jerry was and trying to deny him the chance to show it-I wasn’t, honest, I was just being stupid-and then she said if....if...” He trailed off, looked at his mother, looked again as Xiaoyang as if now begging her to start crying, but still she didn’t.

“What she say?” Genie asked, trying to make her voice soft.  “You must tell me, Jasper.”

Finally he blurted it out: “She said if my blade broke and I fell and died, I’d deserve it, but I really don’t think she meant it, honest!”

Genie didn’t get a chance to respond, because then Xiaoyang suddenly did start crying, and Jasper escaped while she was getting to her and trying to calm her down.  But when they were in the house, and she’d been fed and was quiet again, she called Sid, who thankfully had just gotten out of his meeting with the other Penguins brass, and started the call with “Am I allowed to commit murder?”

“Not on any kids,” Sid replied hastily.  “Especially not your son’s teammates.”

“Mother this time,” she told him, and related her conversation with Jasper.

When she was done, Sid actually sounded nervous as he said, “I don’t think she meant it either, for the record, but do you want to do anything about it?”

“Not care if mean it,” she said.  “I want kill.”

“I’ll go talk to someone, then,” said Sid.  “Trust me, Genie, I can make her regret it enough and leave Jasper alone.  It might even get others to leave him alone too.”

 

  1. _Savior_ -2036



They hadn’t even meant to adopt anyone on this trip.  Adopting children from most African nations seemed to get more complicated by the year, plus they’d intended to wait until Xiaoyang was a little older.  And they’d never intended to adopt anyone out of infancy.  But the minute Genie saw Anyafulu, she knew there was going to be a change of plans.

It was Igor who met her first.  He’d grumbled all the way to Enugu, wondering how his parents had talked him into coming with them.  But in the past he’d always had good rapport with the orphans and this, at least, wasn’t changed by his becoming a teenager.  When his mother found them, he’d already been talking with Anyafulu for an hour, and she found herself thinking if it hadn’t been for their skin colors, a stranger might have thought them siblings all their lives, the way they were smiling and laughing with each other already.  Later she would learn how little Anyafulu had been smiling before they had come there.

Things were solidified in her mind by the time another hour was up.  It took a little longer to convince Sid, who kept talking about how Xiaoyang still needed their primary attention, to go for it.  It was the next day when she went back, met with Anya again, as she started calling her after the girl agreed to the nickname, and started the long, hard process of legally turning her into their daughter.

The best parts of the following days were the ones spent with Anya.  They told her about her upcoming life, about Pittsburgh, about Canada and Russia, and about hockey, of course, though Genie got the feeling as she talked to her that it might be hard to get her to love any sport as much as she loved football.  They learned from her as well, about recent Nigerian history, about the entirety of the history of the Igbo, and her family history.  That was a harrowing tale; even before the accident that had killed both her parents she’d lost three siblings and the grandmother she’d loved more than anyone else in the world to disease.  Later, Genie’s biggest regret of the visit would be that she didn’t take Anya up on her offer to show her the graves.

When at last the paperwork was finalized, and the three of her, Sid, and Igor came in with the papers and also with a laptop so they could introduce her to Jasper and Xiaoyang over Skype, Anya’s reaction to the news was to burst into tears.  Genie ended up just holding her for ten minutes.  The Skype conversation ended up being very short, because Anya clearly couldn’t wait to get out of there.

Nine hours before their flight for Russia was scheduled to leave, she, Sid, and Igor woke up to the sound of her screaming.  Igor reached her first, and Sid and Genie found her hitting and shoving him away, still shouting in Igbo.  “Anya,” Genie pleaded.  “It’s us.  You’re having bad dream.”

When Anya first looked at them, Genie nearly retreated at the wild, violent look of pain and fear she saw.  But then it faded from her new daughter’s eyes as she heard her words.  “Sorry,” she said as she sagged down onto the bed, looking very subdued.

“Don’t be,” said Igor gently.  “Do you want to talk about what you were dreaming about?”

“No,” said Anya firmly.  “But, I just...” Her voice wavered.

“Do you want us stay here with you?” Genie asked her.

“I don’t know,” said Anya, in such a way that left Genie convinced she did, but she didn’t want to ask them, to because she viewed it as selfish of her.

Igor seemed to realize it too, because he asked, “Do you want us to take turns staying here with you, at least until you fall asleep again?”

She still hesitated, but then said, “Okay.”

Genie ended up taking the first shift.  When Sid and Igor had left the room, she settled against the bed, and tried not to wonder how long it would take for Anya to confide in her new family about her nightmares.  She feared it might take years.

For now, Anya managed a tiny smile and said, “Tell me more about Russia.  How big is Moscow?  Is it bigger than Enugu?”

“Much, much bigger,” said Genie.  “Over ten times as many people.  We’ll be there for week, and I’ll try show you everything...”

 

  1. _Namesake_ -2025



 

During the first week of the session, Genie had been all too aware of how much of the heavy lifting Sasha had been doing.  She had been doing this for years, after all, following much more zealously in her father’s coaching footsteps than Genie thought she would’ve had she been born a man, and most of the moments that had made Genie feel she had actually taught someone something practical had come from following her hard-learned tips.  Their schedule was the tried and true format she’d been using for years, right down to getting Sanja to call in long distance to speak to the girls on the first Friday. (She was open to having Sid play that role too sometime, but Genie couldn’t deny someone from their own country worked better.)

On the second Monday, each of them chose a captain, and the two captains got to work picking the members of Team Semina and Team Malkin.  There was a bit of awkwardness about there being three girls in the class who preferred to play goalie, but Sasha had dealt with that kind of situation before, and when her captain, Valentina, chose two of them, she immediately took Genie’s captain, Lina, aside and whispered in her ear, and her next two choices were the third known goalie, and then another girl who, as Sasha explained to Genie later, at least had experience in goal.  The rest of the picking process went fairly smoothly.

And then each of them focused on working almost exclusively with their team, which meant now Genie didn’t have Sasha to help her out.  That moment when Genie led her group of girls over to the far side of the ice was possibly the most terrifying of her life.

“Okay,” she said, trying not to show how scared she was.  “Let’s see how all your skills held up during the weekend.  Goal scoring first, then we’ll try defense work.”

She supposed that was okay enough, especially since the next ten minutes were pretty much like the way Penguins practice often ended, even if Tania, their full-time goalie, didn’t use quite as many swear words as old Flower had.  Though it was during the drills that followed that she actually starting telling them useful things, such as how Vera could improve her puck handling, and how Serafina and Klara could improve their ability to come out of the corners with the puck, and how all the girls could improve their speed.

She initially didn’t think much of it when Evgenia Lorsunova, the little girl whose mother had apparently named her daughter after her, almost ran off the ice at the end of the day.  She wasn’t the only one racing out.  Sasha was known for running her girls ragged sometimes, especially if they raised any of the questions asked about her work ethic back during her own career.  So were most of the other coaches, if only because not only did everyone hope someday one of their girls would make it to the NHL, but it was starting to look like one or two of their generation might break into the KHL instead, and they knew how much pushing either might require-even though the KHL still didn’t match the NHL, it was probably still the harder of the two leagues for a Russian girl to get into.

In fact, and she was ashamed to admit to it, Genie might have never realized something was wrong, if she hadn’t come in a little early Tuesday, and found little Evgenia sitting all alone in the locker room crying.

Her first thought was comfort, which wasn’t very coachlike of her, she supposed, but she went with it, running to get tissues and speaking soothingly as she tried to ask what was wrong.  She didn’t get an answer at first, before the girl cried out, “Stop it!  I know you don’t really want me here, you must be disappointed in me, that I’m not good enough!”

“What do you mean by that?”  asked Genie, genuinely confused.

“Well of course I’m supposed to follow in your footsteps,” she continued, “my parents have made that very clear to me.  But I know I’m not good enough for that, and I don’t want to fly away to some scary foreign country to play hockey with stupid boys!”

She was so young, Genie thought; it probably honestly hadn’t occurred to her that other people might not think the same way her parents did.  But that was a lesson for later.  For now she said gently, “Look at me, Zhenya.” 

When the girl did, she continued, “You don’t have to if you don’t want to.  You can play in the Russian woman’s league if you want; in my professional opinion, you can definitely make that if you just put the work in.”  That was perfectly true, so she hoped the girl believed it.  “Everyone has their own role to play in this world.  Mine was the play in the NHL.  Yours might be to become a star here in Russia, lead of a team of your fellow women to victory, or win big victories in international competition, or really anything.  You’re probably too young to know yet, and why should you worry about it now?  It’ll be a worthy purpose, Zhenya, whatever it is.  I’m sure of that.”

Her tears seemed to be stopping, and she said, “Really?” as if she just might believe Genie.

“Really,” said Genie, and she actually saw it in the girl’s eyes as the most important thing she would teach that week took.  “It’s something that took me a while to learn, but it’s very true...”

 

  1. _Diplomat_ -2014



It was actually surprising to her that of all of them, she was the one Julie Chu seemed willing to talk to.  It was probably simply because she wasn’t Canadian.  She knew girls who didn’t go for the men’s leagues were different, didn’t get the chance to put international rivalries aside, once the international events were over, in favor of the solidarity those trying to make it in the men’s club needed to have with each other.

And that was what Julie had chosen, which had made her infamous.  Drafted by the Sharks at the end of the first wave of female players, she’d spent years turning down their offers in favor of Harvard and woman’s teams.  They’d given up, but other teams had made offers to her as a free agent; she’d refused each one.  Then she’d started going on TV and criticizing those who did take the offers, saying women’s hockey needed them to help build a professional league which could truly open the sport up to women, words which made Genie genuinely wonder if she was selfish.

But her constant harassing of Kim really needed to stop, so when she said she was willing to talk to Genie about it, Genie put off her flight to Moscow, reminded herself to try to hold in the seething frustration that continued to stew within her, now the men had crashed out in the quarterfinals too, and went to see her the morning of the gold medal game.

Nobody bothered Genie as she went through the American village.  She avoided people’s eyes; she didn’t want to see any pity that might be in them.  She came in to Chu doing a light workout, and sat and waited, very much not wanting to disrupt her preparations.  When she was done, she asked, “Why you always call Kim?  Why you ask her so much?”

Chu sighed as she sat down on her bed, still stretching out her arms, probably more to keep her energy from getting overloaded than anything else.  “What do you intend to do when you retire from the Penguins?”  she asked.

“Don’t know,” said Genie truthfully.  She had once, of course.  Up until the summer of 2011, her plan had always been to do what plenty of European players did, to go back to the league of her native country when she was too old and slow to cut it in the NHL any longer, and to give back when she did.  That was before her relationship with Sid had complicated things.  Also before other things had happened, things that had changed her, though she’d only acknowledged it when she’d decided not to return to Russia during the lockout.  “You want me play for North American women leagues?”  It was a possibility, she thought.  She wouldn’t even need to be paid.  She could even help teammates out financially a little.

“Think about it,” said Chu.  “You’d be the biggest star of any woman’s league anywhere.  They’d treat you right.  Maybe you could even persuade Mario Lemieux or one of his pals to make a Pennsylvanian team.  You could be the face of that, really make yourself a legacy.  Face it, right now you’re spending your life in your boyfriend’s shadow, and if you’re in love enough to deal that’s fine, but this would give you a chance to have a couple of years out of it.”

Would there be any point, Genie wondered, in trying to convince her that the last thing she wanted was that kind of fame?  That as far as she was concerned, fame was a great thing only if it helped build the future of woman’s hockey, and maybe for that cause she could go for a woman’s league team before her final retirement, but she might not simply because of the possibility of getting too much attention, too much pressure?

“I guess I’ve kind of been hoping Kim will get bored,” she explained.  “I always hated that she ditched the Stars and accepted the Habs on the terms she did, knowing perfectly well they only signed her because they figured as a woman she’d never be a threat to Price; even if she got better than him people still wouldn’t see her that way.  The whole team wanted her back from the start.  I still think we would’ve won the Clarkson Cup for sure if she’d only stayed.”  Genie had heard this talked about before, and by multiple people, how the theft of the goalie from Montreal’s women’s team by their men had wrecked things so badly for them.  “And now, with Amanda and Hilary both talking about the NHL next season...I hoped she’d be willing to make amends.”

Listening to this made Genie feel her guilt all over again; it wasn’t the first time she’d thought seriously about Agidel Ufa trying to cope without her after she’d literally run out on them the way she had.  But she’d had to do that; she had never once doubted that.  “Maybe,” she said carefully, “Maybe Kim feel she have to do what she do.  Always regret if not.”

A pause, before Julie Chu asked quietly, “Would you have?”  When Genie nodded, she sighed.  “I don’t regret not signing,” she said.  “But maybe...I’ll at least leave her alone for a while, I think.  I don’t promise forever.”

“No need,” said Genie.  “Noone can promise forever for anything...”

 

  1. _The Face of the Team-_ 2024



“And you’re sure this is it?  This was your last season playing any kind of professional hockey?”

“Yes, sure,” said Genie, surprisingly unemotional as she said it.  She’d felt all the emotions already for her retirement, and she wasn’t ready to reveal the pregnancy yet.  She and Sid were even seriously discussing not telling the world about this baby until he or she was born.

“Do you regret not returning to the Russian woman’s league, outside of your first lockout?” another reporter asked.  “You are aware, of course, that Agidel Ufa are on record of offering you any salary you want.”

“Yes, but it did not work out,” she said.  “Is sad, but is how it happened.”  She didn’t think she could ever talk publically in any language, let alone English, about how the idea of playing for Russia had turned complicated in her mind over these past ten years, in a way that before then she would’ve never dreamed could’ve happened.  It hurt, how she still loved her country, but could not ignore how much wrong was done there, and how she was not what its society demanded her to be.

“Hey,” Jocelyne leaned over to interrupt.  “Just talked to a couple of the other girls, and we’re in agreement.  Dinner tonight, strictly in celebration, just us girls, no guys allowed.”

“Okay,” said Genie, though privately the worry crossed her mind of what would happen if the girls who didn’t know about the pregnancy wanted to take her drinking.  She was thankful Jocelyne had known, at least, and probably rejected that as an initial idea.

“I hope you’ll feel a little proud tonight,” said one reporter, who looked like she was barely old enough to be trained for her job.  “Do you have anything further to say to your fans, especially the younger ones, both here and back in Russia, who hope to follow your example?”

“Much I have already said,” said Genie.  “But just never give up, and remember is many ways to succeed and change the world.  These ladies here, they all do too.  Is good of them.”

She saw Jocelyne was still close enough to hear her, and saw how gratified she looked.  She who certainly could’ve spent her entire career in the NHL, she and her sister both, had they not been unwilling to play for different teams.  By the time Monique’s injury had left her on her own, she’d been too old, and had too many injury issues of her own, for more than a few months with the Blues.

“What do you think of the prospects for this team going forward?” asked someone else.  “Do you think they can win the Clarkson Cup?”

“Can win, certainly,” said Genie, and hoped people believed she meant that.  She was aware that too many reporters were spelling doom for the Gannets without her.  “In two years, already one of best teams.  In two more, who knows?”

By the time she was done at last with her last ever post-game media scrum, someone, probably Jocelyne, had already decided where they were going, and she barely had time to text Sid and send him home with Igor before she was pulled off for a ceremonial walk out of Consol.

Of course they passed the new mural of her and Jocelyne together in their Gannets uniforms.  There’d been a little fuss when they’d put that one up, especially since it had resulted in the mural of her in her Penguins uniform being removed.  Genie hadn’t minded.  The Penguins didn’t need her to be noticed.  The Gannets did.  She was aware that she would probably remain significant to their image in a way most former faces of the team didn’t in the year or so after their retirement, that more people would think about her in connection to the Gannets than would think about the players still on the team.  That was something everyone had to resign themselves to.

Even Jocelyne, whom in Genie’s opinion ought to be the true face of the Gannets, stepped up smiling to the mural, saying, “I still think they got both our noses wrong.”

Britta McLaughlin, the youngest player on the team, joined her there, saying, “You two look like you were born to wear those uniforms,” and suddenly Genie was so vividly reminded of herself at Britta’s age of eighteen, that combined with the remarks of the reporters earlier the still familiar guilt rushed back, as she remembered how she had once thought the same way about the Agidel Ufa uniform.

Perhaps she would never stop feeling this way sometimes, although it had at least become easier since the night, almost ten years ago to the day now, that her decision had finally been made and her future settled, the start of the path to finally understanding that sometimes there were things and fates you had to accept in life, courses you had to take, things you had to make work, and things you had to let go...

 

  1. _Expatriate_ -2014



 

It was the kind of argument that happened sometimes when they were struggling in the playoffs, where Sid would not. Stop.  Whining.  And Genie just didn’t have the patience to put up with it.  She hadn’t even touched his sticks-she never touched his sticks and he knew that.  “If we lose because of this...” he was yelling.

“You find excuse to lose!”  she yelled back, and before the alarm sounded in her head to stop she’d also let out, “Maybe you scared we lose, shift blame!”

She wished she could take it back even before Sid demanded, his voice slowly down and dropping dangerously, “What did you just say?”

All Genie could look at was his fists, clenched as his sides, his elbows slightly bent.  This was it, she thought, almost relieved; she’d finally pushed him too far.  She had readied herself for the blow even before he moved forward...

... turning away from her and towards the stick in question, pointing towards it and starting, “Look, I know when I walked out of this room that stick was...” Then he stopped suddenly, slowly looked her up and down, and asked, even more softly, “Genie, why did you flinch?”

“I flinch?”  she asked.  She hadn’t noticed.  She’d just been bracing herself.  “Sorry.  But I know how this go, Sid.”

A long pause, and in the same voice, he asked, “Genie, did you really expect me to...hit you?”

He sounded absolutely horrified, which just made Genie feel like even more of a failure as a girlfriend, even before he turned around, walked out of the kitchen, and called back to her, “I’m going to go talk with Mario.  I’ll be back later.”

At least he’d told her this time.  She even yelled something about driving safely as he left.

After she decided on what she had to say to him when he came back, she took exactly one shot of vodka, because she’d need her head, but she didn’t want to face this completely sober.  Then she called Oksana; it was just early enough for her to still be awake.

Awake, maybe, but it sounded from the background music when she answered that she was out.  “Zhenya?”  she asked.  “What’s happened?  Are you hurt?”

“No, I’m fine there,” she said.  “This is a much longer anticipated problem.”

After she’d told her the basic story, she said, “Well, maybe he’s one of those North American men who makes a point of not doing that.  They do exist, after all.”

“But would he be if he knew what I think every time he talks as if we’re going to be together forever?”  she said softly.

“No, he wouldn’t,” Oksana agreed.  Then a pause, and she said hastily, “Zhenya, there’s no need to tell him all about that tonight.”

“Then when?”  she asked.  “Tomorrow?  During the summer, when I’m in Russia?  When my retirement is imminent?”

“Okay, it would be a bad idea to wait that long.  But you’re going to have a hard enough night tonight as it is.”

“No,” she insisted.  “I have to tell him tonight.  I have to tell him so he’ll understand.  Oksana, when I told him about Lesha, and about you, he reacted to hearing about Lesha as if I was some sort of victim, manipulated and naïve.  And he should’ve known better, that trying to be a professional female hockey player doesn’t allow you be innocent that long.  He doesn’t understand how I wronged him.  He doesn’t think I did even when I cheated on him with you, even when I told him I’ve no reason to believe he ever cheated on me.  Now he’s going to talk like this is some sort of injury I have to apply myself to recover from, and I have to make him understand that what Lesha did to me is nothing compared to what I did to him.”

“Well, if you really feel that way, I suppose you must tell him,” said Oksana, though she still didn’t sound that happy.  “I just hope it doesn’t lead to a breakup.”

“I actually don’t think it will,” said Genie, though for a moment she wondered if their relationship might technically survive while their happiness didn’t.  “If nothing else, he would need time to think before trying to break up with me for any reason, same as he ran to Mario right after our first kiss, because any large change in our relationship affects the team, maybe even more so, now that we’re so associated together in their minds...”

 

  1. _The Captain’s Girlfriend_ -2013



 

Haley Irwin had been among the AHL players called up from Wiles-Barre after Scranton had knocked them out of the Calder Cup playoffs, arriving in the wake of a frustrating Game 1 loss, and barely having time to be welcomed by Genie before the Penguins had suffered another far worse one.  She along with the other black aces ended up getting introduced to half the team while they were boarding the plane to Boston.

The morning of Game 3 Cookie apparently thought it appropriate to do a prank (probably meant to cheer them up, but it didn’t really work), which left Genie in the shower for much longer than usual after practice.  She even retreated into the two closed-off stalls at the end that she rarely bothered using, even now, when most of the big arenas had them.  She had noticed Haley had been using them, and had heard her normal teammates express surprise, because she almost never had in Wilkes-Barre, but she figured that was just because she didn’t know these guys as well as she did her normal team.

It was probably because of this that she didn’t hear it when the healthy scratches for that night, Haley among them, came into the locker room.  Also she was distracted, thinking about that night’s game, and all the things she’d done wrong during the first two, and all the things she _had_ to do right tonight.

When she finally stepped out of the shower, most of the people she’d gone into the showers with were gone and three AHL boys were showering (so young she really felt a need to keep her eyes to herself; when had those kids gotten so young anyway?). But she could hear Sid speaking soothingly in the locker room.  Her first thought was that it was to Flower or Vokey; he’d been doing a lot of work with them both throughout the playoffs.

But when she turned into the locker room, what she was instead was him and Haley, sitting far too close, and while she didn’t see his face, she saw hers, all angled up to be inches away from his, closer than most of his teammates would get if they weren’t trying to have fun with him, and she wasn’t even trying to hide the complete adoration on her face.

She wasn’t even sure what her first exclamation was, or even whether it was in English or Russian.  But it made that girl jump, which was the important part.  Sid looked over, and Genie felt a momentarily relief at seeing his “captain” face so firmly fixed on-when he got like this he might not have even noticed how close she’d gotten, but she was still angry as she marched over.

Haley was already stumbling back, stammering, “Look, I’m sorry, I just wanted someone to tell me honestly what my chances were,” as if Genie had known exactly what they were talking about, though she could guess quickly enough.  “I gotta shower.”

“She didn’t wait for her answer,” Sid commented as she fled.  He was genuinely confused, at least for another moment, and then he saw Genie’s face, and shook his head.  “No, Genie, I’m telling you as your captain, you can’t do this.  I would expect you to be at least civil to any AHL girl that came up here, and also I’m telling you this won’t be the last time we see this one; I’m fairly sure of that.”

This was not the time to have an argument with him, Genie had to remind herself.  But even so she had to say, “You know why she sit so close.  You notice?”

“I don’t care,” he snapped back.  “She admitted to me she was starstruck anyway; she spends enough time with us and she should get over that.  Now go in there and apologize to her.  I’m commanding you here, Genie.”

When Sid gave these kinds of commands, noone would think to disobey.  Still, Genie especially found herself smarting as she went back into the shower area, with Sid turning away so fast it was clear she wasn’t even getting a kiss from him right now. Haley, surprisingly, wasn’t in the closed off stalls.  That confused Genie so much that when Haley turned her head at the sound of her entering and their eyes met, she might not have even been showing any anger. 

“Our goalie’s in there,” she explained.  “He uses those stalls more than I do.  You don’t even want to know.”  That made sense enough.  Genie had known various teammates to sometimes slip into those stalls simply to jerk off, including her own boyfriend after good enough a game.  “Look, I am sorry if I upset you.  You shouldn’t worry, though, I would never, ever, _ever_...”

“Do not think you would,” said Genie, and she didn’t, which made her aware her behavior had been pretty petty.  Determined to make it up to her, she said, “You and me, drink some time?  I be nice, I promise.”

“Yeah, sure,” said Haley, though she still looked pretty nervous.  It made Genie really feel bad.  She ought to know better, she thought.  Especially considering the great black mark in her own past, and how badly she had suffered from one man’s jealousy...

 

  1. _Victim_ -2005



 

At least she got home that evening, and not even home to the apartment in Ufa she was nominally living in, but had never really seen much of, but home to where her family now lived here in Magnitogorsk.  It was even more of a blessing that nobody was home when she did, because had she walked in to the smiles and love of her family, she wouldn’t have been able to keep it together.

Instead Zhenya could just crawl into bed and shift around until maybe her bruises didn’t hurt as much anymore.  She was still in shock over that.  He’d directly promised her he would be a better man than that, told her tales of boyfriends that deliberately hurt their girlfriends so badly they couldn’t play in important games, while he was interested in taking care of her and furthering her career.  But even when she’d cried at him that he was hurting her knees and she might not be able to skate the next day, he’d kept on going.  She supposed he must have been in such a rage he hadn’t been able to understand her words.

She knew she deserved it, of course.  Every word he’d called her was true; she had been a whore, and she had been a liar.  Even if she hadn’t directly lied to him, that was only because when he’d been demanding to know if she’d slept with the man he thought she’d slept with, he hadn’t thought of the possibility of her sleeping with his wife instead.  Who would have anyway?  Zhenya was pretty sure that was something only perverts did, and she still couldn’t believe she’d done it.  It could probably end her career before it began, if anyone every found out about it.  What if her teammates grew afraid of her?

She couldn’t be so lucky as to stay alone, of course.  After an hour, she heard the door open, and her brother’s voice call, “Anyone here?”  She didn’t answer, but he must have seen her shoes by the door, because a moment later he called “Zhenya?”

She did a quick assessment of her injuries.  Of course the ice left her banged up anyway.  Those marks Lesha left were rarely as bad as those hockey did.  But she was quick enough to determine that almost everything was hidden by her clothes.  She just had to be carefully while sitting, and try to walk as little as possible.

She was still pulling herself out of the blankets when he found her, but he just chuckled and said, “Still hungover?  Or just needing to get some sleep?  That party went late last night, didn’t it?”  She managed an affirming sound.  “What a place,” Denis sighed, sitting on the blankets next to her.  “Just think, when you go over to the NHL, you’ll make so much money you can model your place after that one.  The sheer size of it...” There was absolutely nothing Genie ever could have said to this, so she said nothing.  He patted her shoulder and said, “It’s all right.  I’ll leave you to sleep.”

At least they were no longer in the old apartment where there wouldn’t have been much place for him to go, since Genie had earned enough money to help her family get a bigger one.  She dreamed of putting them up in a real house, but she knew that would require making it in the NHL, and her brother apparently thought she would make much more than she was likely to.

And truly, at that moment, Genie wasn’t sure it was right for her to go over to North America, desert the team that needed her, and do Lesha even more wrong than she’d done to him already, even though she assumed he wouldn’t mind, since that was one of the biggest goals of developing her game.  Still, she’d started watching the footage of the Pittsburgh Penguins with a mix of want and guilt, wondering what it would be like to play with such men from old Mario Lemieux to young Sidney Crosby, and trying and failing to not compare them to her slower, weaker Agidel Ufa teammates.

She did sleep a little, but it didn’t get rid of her aches and pains, which were still there when she woke up to the sound of her parents’ voices, causing several moments of sheer panic, before much to her relief she heard Lesha’s voice too; he’d think up an explanation for everything.  In fact, she was even more relieved than frightened when she first heard Denis tell them she was napping and then Lesha say he’d wake her.

She was too ashamed to look at him even as he knelt by her side and gently untangled her from the sheet, his hands as warm as they always were.  “Did I seriously hurt you?” he asked softly.  “I’m so sorry.  I never meant to do that.  I promise, I’ll never do that again.”

“My knees,” she forced herself to say.  “If my parents see them, I won’t know how to explain it.”  She tried to get to her feet.

“Lean on me and I think you’ll be able to walk normally.  Just say you’re still tired.  It’ll be all right.  I’ll take care of you.  You’ll be better again in no time.”

And it all worked.  She was sure her brother noticed nothing, and while she wasn’t sure her parents were quite so blind, they at least didn’t seem to get alarmed.  She would have to spend the night here, of course; that was basic prudence, but he hugged her before saying goodbye, and then she excused herself and went straight to bed, and pushed her face deep into her pillow to keep her family from hearing anything as she let out tears at last.

But even then, she knew she wasn’t as ashamed as she ought to be, because the words going through her heard were ones spoken by that wicked faithless wife who had incited her to perversion, yet try as she might she couldn’t escape the thought that she just might have been right: “You really do need to commit a terrible sin or two, just like everybody else does.  Your trying to do what you’re trying to do as a girl makes you feel too much like you have to engage in perfect behavior all of the time…”

 

  1. _Foreigner_ -2017



 

There’d been no question she’d go.  She was both Sidney Crosby’s wife and his A, and it was her job to back him up.  Sid wasn’t even happy when Haley declared she had an invitation to work with some disadvantaged young female hockey players, and therefore would be otherwise occupied while the rest of the team visited the White House.  It shouldn’t have even been that bad.  She could still make nice with her own country’s leader to this day, and she certainly didn’t approve of everything he did.  (Although lately that had been getting worse.)

But the thing Genie could never have seen coming was when it was her turn to shake Donald Trump’s hand, when she looked at him, all she could think of was _Lesha_.

That didn’t even make any sense. The two of them didn’t look alike, or sound alike, or do anything alike.  Well, there was one thing Lesha had done to her that Trump had allegedly done to his first wife.  But Lesha had never gone to the extremes that woman claimed, not even the two times he’d seriously hurt her.

She was glad that this time she and Sid were seated near the back of the room.  For one thing, she was discovering that day that people who reminded her too much of Lesha were no longer people she wanted to sit very near.  She wasn’t sure when that had become true.  For another, she was a little anxious that were she near the front, someone might notice how frozen on her current poker face was.  They really did not need anyone realizing how desperately she suddenly didn’t want to be there.

Genie had been prepared for not wanting to hear whatever nonsense he spewed out, and being near the back also made it easier to not really listen to what he was saying.  That was hardly unusual for her when she was around people making speeches in English anyway.  Instead her mind wandered.

She thought of the text from Sasha that she’d gotten just before they’d arrived.  Sasha, who was now the one playing for Agidel Ufa, having signed with them over the summer.  It was so she could compete in the Olympics, of course, but Genie suspected she wouldn’t ever come back to North America again.

There was something in Sasha that had changed this past year, maybe just her getting fed up. It was she who had first said, though Genie had been quick to agree, that the U.S. had revealed their hypocrisy about women when they’d elected the man droning on right now.  They could make their accusations all they wanted about Trump and Putin.  Terrifyingly, Genie couldn’t even assume those untrue.  But they’d still been the ones to vote him in.

She also had provided a reason to Genie to think about Lesha very recently, even if it didn’t explain her reaction to Trump just now. Because the text had said, _What do you think would’ve happened if you hadn’t wanted to sleep with Lesha?_

It was the second time she’d had that question asked of her.  The first time she’d easily dismissed it, because what did it matter, when she had wanted to, almost from the first moment she’d seen him?  But this time, well, there had been other texts from Sasha recently.  Ones that made her aware that she wasn’t really asking the question about Genie herself, or even Lesha either, since he wasn’t with Agidel Ufa anymore.

She didn’t think Sasha was talking about herself, either; she’d indicated as much in what she’d said.  Which of her teammates she was talking about Genie didn’t expect to ever know.  Nor which man with too much power over her was trying to take advantage of it.

But sitting there, supposedly being honored by the company of a man who had bragged on camera about such things, Genie was thinking about that fact, that something that had happened to her, and she was starting to realize had been a terrible thing, was happening again, only worse.  And while once she wouldn’t have thought anything of both that happening and her current situation also happening, well, now she wasn’t sure she thought those two things unrelated anymore.  There were things clicking together in Evgenia’s head as she sat in her chair next to her husband in the White House.

When at last it was over, and she and Sid were alone again, he said, “You really didn’t enjoy that at all, did you?”

She shrugged.  “Sometimes are things, you should like, except something happens, so you can’t.  Sorry, Sid.”

He shook his head.  “Well, you’ll still be polite, right?  I hate to have to say this, Genie, I really do…”

“No need,” she cut him off.  “And no worry.  I always be polite foreigner, respectful of other people’s leaders.”  She didn’t say more.  Right now, she saw no point in it.

Because of course that was the way he viewed it.  Because Sid did what he’d been taught was right. He treated her, his wife, well, because he’d been taught that to be right. But he went to the White House, and shook hands with Trump, and said what he said about it, because he’d been lead to think that right.  Because when it came down to it, he didn’t actually _understand_.

Genie couldn’t blame him.  It was only now she was finally starting to understand herself…

 

  1. _Survivor_ -2014



 

She’d been prepared for the speech when he came back.  Starting with the apology for telling Mario about her history with Lesha, though he had at least avoided revealing the truth about her and Oksana, merely saying she’d cheated on Lesha without giving any details.  He did have a lot more historical information and statistics in it than she’d quite anticipated, although maybe she should have, what with it being Sid.  He always prepared as much as possible for the important things.

Though it did kind of disturb her that he had, presumably while he’d been over at Mario’s, become an expert on subjects concerning her home country that Genie herself was ignorant of.  She’d heard people say vaguely that Russia had a domestic violence problem, but she’d never really looked into it.  He did at least also acknowledge that such issues were hardly unknown in North America either, and had been especially prevalent in the past.   But this was mainly to argue at her that this was not about nationalism, even though it still kind of was.

It was when he started talking about how abuse was still wrong even if it didn’t reach the level of what Semya’s ex-girlfriend had alleged against him (and he was making no comment as to whether those allegations were true or not, he was sure to emphasize; he was just using it as an example), that it all just made her burst into desperate laughter.  She wasn’t even sure why.  Maybe it was the thought that Semya’s ex-girlfriend had done it to get out of Russia (and that was what she was insisting on believing; because she couldn’t bring herself to believe someone she knew, and despite his occasional comments about her looks was as protective of her as all the league’s Russian men were, could do any of _that_ to anyone), while here she was, facing a conversation involving her wanting to do anything but.

That got him to stop, though, and ask, “What?”

“You do not know!” she burst out.  “You do not think.  Will you think Lesha such bad man when you are he?  When I go home?”

That stopped him dead.  Then a moment later, clearly panicked, he asked, “Genie, are you planning to leave the NHL?!”

“No,” she said hastily.  “No, for career, I stay here.  But I have job to do.  Duty.”  She hoped that second word was strong enough to describe it.

And that, at least, he got instantly. “To make more female Russian hockey players, you mean.  But would it really be that damaging if you didn’t move back to Russia full time?”

That made her pause momentarily; a mistake, she realized, when he, seeing the opening, charged in: “I mean, you really want children, same as me, right?  And Magnitogorsk isn’t a good place to raise them.  You’ve said enough about it to make that clear.  So unless you want to spend a lot more time in Moscow than I think you like being there...I mean, I get you’d want them to see Russia, obviously, maybe live there for periods of time, but the whole year?  Maybe it would be smarter to have them here during the school year, and we could all go spend the summers in Russia.  I do want to stay here in Pittsburgh and stay involved with the team, but I think we could make that work, I really do.”

“I think you want spend summers in Canada,” said Genie, because she wasn’t going to be wheedled by words on this.

“We’ll find time,” he shrugged.  “Maybe not much of it, okay.  But Genie, _I get it._   I understand that once we retire, you’ve got more important things to do than I do.  Hell, you probably have them now; it’s just that we’re both playing for the Penguins, and that overrides everything.”

“You’d do that for me?”  Genie was so shocked it just blurted out of her.  Her head was still shaking.  “But...but...men do not do that.”

But he only smiled and said, “Genie, when have I been like most people at all?”

That point she could not deny. 

“I would like you to believe that more men are capable of respecting their women as people with their own hopes and dreams in life,” he continued. “But after what you’ve been through, I’ll settle for you believing I’m willing to make a life with you that works for both of us, because I think that’s manageable.  I’d...” He looked around.  “You know, I’m starting to think I should propose to you right now, though we’d have to get the ring later.  But,” he shook his head, “I don’t think I can do that if you can’t get yourself to believe in all that.  Can you, Genie?” 

His voice was starting to shake, the way she hadn’t heard it do since the dark days of his concussion and neck injury.  “You hear what I’m saying, Genie.  Can you get yourself to believe we can do this?  Together?”  And he offered his hand, reminding her of that day, nearly eight years ago, when she’d first met him at Mario’s doorstep as her new teammate.

This wasn’t even dissimilar, she thought, especially in his mind, where he was probably now thinking that getting married was just becoming a permanent team for the rest of your life, a commitment he’d be happy to make.  And for her part, the thought of it, when it was put that way, made her even more dizzy than the more conventional dream of marrying Sid could.

And was it any more unreasonable a dream, she found herself thinking, than making the NHL in the first place had been?  Especially when he was already laying out a game plan for them, taking all the factors into consideration, and was more than willing to do what it took?  Of course they might fail.  That was a possibility in every venture anyone ever made.  But looking at him, so earnest and determined, well, he’d succeeded in convincing teammates they could win even when the odds were against them countless times already. 

He was convincing her.

“Yes,” she said, and shook his hand.  “Yes, Sid, I think I can believe we can do this.”

And then he was smiling, even as he was kneeling down, because he knew perfectly well she was going to say yes, and of course she did, and with each kiss from him believed him even more, until it was almost frightening, the overwhelming change to all the presumptions about her life and her world this would bring upon her...

 

  1. _Bridesmaid-_ 2020



 

“How are you holding up?”  It was a little strange, Genie thought, that she was the one ducking into the bedroom to ask the bride this question, when of the four bridesmaids, she’d been the one least involved in everything surrounding the wedding.  But she was aware that she was the only one who had any real idea what was going on in Sasha’s head.  One thing that still troubled her was how different from most of their fellow Russian women they both were, how many of them seemed to Genie to be so frivolous and shallow. 

“I’m not having a heart attack,” was Sasha’s response.  She rose, and Genie watched her size herself up in the mirror as if she was preparing to go out on the ice.  Never mind that those days were supposed to be over for her now, her retirement announced just before she and Artemev had set the date, because he had been an asshole and refused to marry her until she was done for sure with North America.  Genie had carefully not offered her opinion on this behavior of his.  She wondered what would’ve happened had her pregnancy not caused Sasha to retire completely at thirty-five.

“You look beautiful,” Genie said to her, and she meant it.  She supposed some men might have been put off by Sasha’s arms and legs being as thick and hard as they still were, but she’d found a dress that flattered them, in its way, and with her post-partum weight gone, she cut a fairly sturdy figure.  Her hair had been curled and set expertly around her face and about the top of the veil.  Genie didn’t think she’d applied her make-up yet, but the glow of joy about her face was such that she almost didn’t need it.

And thankfully Sasha knew her well enough to believe her, though she sighed and said, “You should’ve heard what Artemev’s mother said to me when she came in here earlier,” and as she continued to look in the mirror, her shoulders were shrugging the way Genie had sometimes seen them do when she fought back tears.

“Sasha, what did she say to you?” Genie demanded, thoughts in her head of killing Artemev’s mother, because. She. Had. No. Right.

“No, no, no,” said Sasha hastily.  “I’m not crying because of her,” and she was crying now, only a little, but her hands were moving to wipe the tears away.  “It’s just...I never thought I’d have this day.  Not since I was very young.”

Genie went to give her a handkerchief and hug her, as she added, “Part of me is still convinced Artemev’s going to disappear when I go out there.”

“I’m sure that’s worth a penalty,” Genie told her.  “Five minutes for vanishing.” 

It wasn’t her best joke, but it made Sasha laugh, and as they separated, she said to her, “You do know, Zhenya, that we have to stay friends for the rest of our lives, because nobody else will ever understand either of us entirely, not even our husbands.”

She had stopped crying, but a moment later they heard tiny wails from the adjoining room, and she hurried out, crying, “Oh my poor little Liza!”  Genie watched her leave, and then come back cradling her baby in her arms; Elizaveta thankfully was already starting to calm down.  In between crooning nothings, Sasha asked her, “Zhenya, could you find Viktoria for me?”

“Sure,” Genie agreed, and she was happy to leave then, though she wasn’t happy with herself for being happy.  She ought not to envy Sasha, she knew, and for the most part she never had.  But from the moment her old friend had first showed her daughter to her, Genie had found it harder and harder not to think about how much she wanted that, wanted a baby of her own.  It had even recently caused a big fight with Sidney, who kept insisting they needed to wait, never saying how long even.

She managed to bring Viktoria back about twenty minutes later, by which time Elizaveta had managed to quiet, and Nina had also arrived.  Genie didn’t think Nina entirely liked her, but she was now focused on making Sasha up, saying soft words to her that Genie hope were not scolding her for yet another fit of tears.  She was pretty sure the bride would need at least one touch-up before the ceremony anyway.

Though Nina was the one of them that had known Sasha the longest, from the time they’d been eight.  That was caused her, when she was done, to sigh and say, “You look like you’re sixteen again.”  Genie wondered if she had any idea what had happened to Sasha when she’d been sixteen.  She hoped Sasha wasn’t remembering that at the moment.

Maybe she actually wasn’t; she smiled and said, “Thanks.  Glad to have you here.  This whole thing wouldn’t be the same without you...”

 

  1. _Old Friend-_ 2020



 

Sid had never liked to watch the Stanley Cup finals when he wasn’t playing in them, and downright refused to when they went down in the third round.  Although now he was willing to concede he might still have gone to watch the event in person if his sister happened to be playing in it, but her team hadn’t even made the playoffs this year.  So as usual he had moved his normal morning run and afternoon workouts to the evening, often went to bed early, and seemed cross whenever she even discussed it with him.  It was unseemly of him, she thought, when not only were there the former teammates involved, but she would’ve been watching even if there hadn’t been, and was practically required to, because of Knighter.

It was good, as she’d known it would be, when the Knights did indeed take it, to see Engelland pass the Cup to Hilary, who for a moment looked like she actually might stumble lifting it, but she didn’t, and she got it high.  After that she patiently watched it pass through a couple more hands, noting how many times the camera seemed to want to go back to Knighter, before Perry skated over to Nealsey with it.  She was amused to see the state his hair was in; at any other time he might have been having a meltdown over that.  It maybe made him look a bit like a lunatic when he was skating around and roaring with a huge piece of silver lifted in the air, but nothing could’ve stopped Genie’s heart from warming the way it did, or left her able to stop smiling.

When the NBC broadcast concluded, she flipped over to the NBC Sports Network, where she also got to see James even find Paul Martin in the audience to hug, and she felt a moment’s longing.  When next the TV went to the talking heads, she settled for taking her phone out and texted him a congratulations.  As she added “)))” after “Lazy,” then shrugged and added a fourth smile, she wondered if anyone he saw every day even called him that anymore.  She sent Knighter a congratulations too, of course.

She hadn’t even been expecting him to be checking his phone at the moment, but to her surprise only ten minutes later he wrote back, _Over half an hour!  Took u long enuff))_ , and then, a moment or so after she had stopped laughing, _wld’ve been nice 2 have u win it w/me tho_.

 _I know((_ she wrote back, and for a moment she couldn’t help but think how nice that would’ve been, handing him the Cup right after Sid had handed it to her, clapping and cheering and getting to witness his happiness firsthand, blasting him with champagne afterwards while he called her Bully, and just them dancing and laughing together for all the time that followed.

But she didn’t cling to that too long.  What had happened instead had happened, and the Cup was the Cup no matter how you won it or who you won it with, and her primary emotion that night was just happiness for him that he’d finally gotten his.

It was a feeling strong enough she stayed up later than she intended, just because going to bed meant an end to holding onto that moment.  She toasted Nealer and the Knights with vodka from her stash while the dogs looked at her funny, then watched the NHL network until they at last lapsed into paid programming, then even spent five minutes staring tiredly at Hilary’s simple mass response when she sent one out, before rereading the chatter of the other girls, because of course they’d all been texting each other about it.  She finally drifted off on the couch.

She woke up to a phone with a dangerously low battery and bursting with pictures from Nealsey, many of them embarrassing.  Those were the ones she enjoyed looking at the most naturally, devised chirps to send him maybe in an hour or so after the phone had spent a little time at the charger.  When Sid finally trudged downstairs, got a quick confirmation from her of the previous night’s outcome, and was then placated with coffee, he even came up with one or two for her.

 

  1. _Very Old Friend-_ 2026



 

“Here we are, Jasper,” she said to her son, encouraging him to hang higher on her still broad shoulders.  “Here was where I was born and grew up.”

“He doesn’t know what you’re saying, you know,” said Igor, making her wonder just when he’d gotten old enough to become a smart aleck.  Maybe when his brother had arrived home from the adoption agency?  Her mother had once theorized having a younger sibling automatically had that effect on children, even though she couldn’t think Denis was older enough than her for that to have happened with him.  But it was another thing to learn about now.

Learning even as she taught too, and as she lead her two sons through the bus depot she even went ahead and pointed out the older buildings too them, and Igor did look where she was pointing.  “But that one’s new…” she was starting to say, pointing to the biggest, when she nearly ran into a face she had once known very well indeed, and she jumped back in shock from the near collision, exclaimed the name even as the exclamation of “Zhenya!”  rang in her ears.

It had been a good ten years since she’d last seen Kristina.  Back when she’d only just divorced her first husband and needed a place to stay, she’d let her spend the winter in their Moscow apartment.  She’d heard vaguely about her return to Magnitogorsk after that and her second marriage.  She was looking a lot better than she had, at least.

But some things wouldn’t change; once they got over the shock, they were instantly hugging and kissing.  Thankfully Jasper took it all in stride, giggling and patting at the newcomer when she was within his arm’s reach.  Kristina was delighted to meet her children too, and cooed about how much Igor looked like his mother.  That made Genie briefly wonder if Kristina had heard Jasper was adopted, because they hadn’t tried to hide that, and they might even talk about it at length in the future, but they didn’t want to while he was so young, and so she didn’t know how far word of it had gotten around in Russia.

Forty minutes after that Genie had found a place where she could treat her friend to tea and they could let down their guard, which had not been as easy as she would’ve liked; she’d known already crime in Magnitogorsk had gone up a bit again.  Must of the catching up was done by Genie about Kristina’s life.  She and her husband had struggled for a year at one point but now between them were making enough to feel comfortable. She’d lost both her parents , though to cancer. (Genie thought of Denis, and how lucky he had been, and how he might not have lived if he hadn’t had so wealthy a sister.)  They were now considering whether or not they wanted children, but weren’t sure Magnitogorsk was the place to raise them.  “I don’t blame you from fleeing this place,” she said.

“I could try to get your husband a job in Moscow if you want,” offered Genie.  “Might even get one for you, though that’s harder sometimes.  I know people now.”  Not as many as she would’ve liked, but she’d kept enough friends, before it had become harder for her to make them.

She regretted making the offer, though, when she saw Kristina’s sad face, and the brief temptation that ran over it, before she shook her head and said. “No.  Thanks, but I don’t think I’d ever get Kostya to agree to it.  He’s a proud man, and he hates Moscow, at least as much as one can when he’s never been there.    He gets mad whenever I talk about being there.  He likes to pretend I wasn’t.”

And it was yet another time, Genie thought, that she would have to hold her tongue about what she thought.  It seemed every time she went back to Russia, the number of those times increased.  She also had to avoid flinching where Igor remarked, “That’s silly.”

She was relieved when Kristina ignored him, and changed the subject, asking, “How long do you intend to stay here?  Do you have any clinics going?”

“I do,” said Genie.  “I’m going to do one this week, and then Sasha Semina’s coming here and we’re going to do one of her two-week sessions at the new rink, before we have the big opening party.”  That had been the reason they’d come here, the official opening of the rink she’d helped finance, and yet since they’d started working out their scheduling, it had felt like the least important thing she’d be doing during the trip.

“Are you still taking sign-ups for either?”  My neighbor has a ten-year-old daughter who’d love that.”

“Sure.  Let me give you the contact info.”  It took a little longer to get it out than she’d intended, because Jasper had stolen her pen out of her purse, and it was five minutes of her trying to get him to show her where in his coat he had hidden it, before Igor finally figured it out.  He wouldn’t stop smirking about that either.

At least until Kristina finally scolded him, “You don’t want your face to freeze like that, do you?  Nobody will want to play with you if it does.”

She let Genie pick up the tab, although she didn’t look entirely happy about it, making Genie think maybe they should’ve gone to someplace cheaper, but it was too late for that.  They exchanged numbers, and Kristina looked so sad, Genie said, “I will contact you again before we leave, Krista.  I promise it.”

Still, she thought later, even if she did, it would probably be a long time after they left Magnitogorsk before she could again see Kristina.  It might even be another ten years, or still more…

 

  1. _Victor_ -2021



 

She had known he’d been invited to the gala, along with his wife.  But when Genie hadn’t seen or heard anything of him, she initially thought he wasn’t attending.  Which was still a relief.  Fifteen years after she had run from him, she had still never faced him, nor wanted to.

Even with the pregnancy adding extra weight and leaving her unable to drink, she’d been having a good time.  Sasha had been there, as had most of the Russian girls who had ever been drafted by the NHL, whether they’d then played in it or not, including two she hadn’t met before.  So were plenty of teammates or former teammates who were currently waiting out the lockout in the KHL, including Haley, who’d ended up signing for Tornado Moscow, and though they’d all wanted news about the negotiations, Sid’s latest report had been optimistic.  They also all wanted to hear about how her pregnancy was going, and there the news was all good.

By the time everyone was going into dinner, Sasha had probably drunk too much, and Genie was glad that in the crush of people going through the doors, both her husband and Anton Khudobin were keeping hold of her.  She herself was separated from her, however.  Instead, she thought she heard the voice of one of the two girls who had been drafted in recent years on her right.  She turned to look-

-and promptly found herself face to face with Lesha.

In the intervening years, his hair had gone grey, and his face was harder-or maybe she just perceived it as harder now.  His eyes were still the same intense pale blue that had once made her feel like she was the most important thing in the world when he looked at her.  He was also accompanied by a woman who could only be his wife.  She was a little younger than him, Genie thought, but maybe not by too much; a middle-aged lady with perfect hair and makeup and an aura of stiffness about her.  Genie found herself feeling sorry for her; she struck her as not being a very happy person.

There might have been a split second where she had expected to feel vulnerable, to want to quail away.  But the feeling never even came.  And then those eyes flew down, to the bump, and to the hand that covered it.  Another man’s ring, and another man’s baby.  Genie was aware that ought to make her indignant, that that was what he would respond to, but she was beyond that.  The baby kicked slightly, and it made her feel safe.

“Zhenya,” he said to her, giving nothing away by his voice.  “It has been a very long time.”

“It has, sir,” she said, carefully, not sure if his wife knew about their history, or whether or not she wanted to tell her if she didn’t.  “You’ve retired from coaching, now, I believe.”

“Yes,” he said.  “I went into business, and met my lovely Tatiana here.”  And he took his wife’s hand and drew her closer to him, and hinted at a smile, and not a nice one.

He was expecting she would be jealous.  She could see the hostility in Tatiana’s eyes as she looked at her, as if she was afraid of her, her husband’s old flame.  As if Genie would ever want him now.  As if she could have, even had she not been happily married.  Also she saw the contempt, and the dislike, and Genie thought that might be for who she was in general, an unwomanly woman who spent her life doing things a woman ought not to do. 

That did hurt, maybe a little more every time Genie met a countrywoman who looked at her like that.  But that pain Genie was learning to live with.  She would’ve liked to have been warm and welcoming as she reached out and shook Tatiana’s hand, and said she was pleased to meet her.  But this was a woman she knew from long experience she would never get through to.  There was a sneer in her voice, too, as she asked after Genie’s family, and added to her husband’s comments about their own two-year-old daughter.  “I don’t think she’ll play hockey,” she said at one point.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Genie.  “But of course I want everyone to at least try hockey.”

They had talked an appropriate amount of time when she heard another old friend call her over, and she was happy to excuse herself.  She still felt Lesha’s eyes on her a little as she hurried away, but they lost their strength quickly. 

Lesha and his wife stayed far away from her for the rest of the evening, and in fact, she would never talk to either of them again.  Ultimately she didn’t even think about it much once dinner got underway, not when news related to another woman’s hockey team ended up reaching her that night…

 

  1. _Spectator_ -2022



 

It was partly by chance they were able to attend the championship game.  They happened to have played in Toronto the previous night, and from there didn’t have another game for three days.  So Genie, Sid, and a few more of the guys were allowed to forego the flight home in favor of taking a bus to Barrie to watch and show their support for women’s hockey.  Though there was quite a war en route trying to settle which team they were going to cheer for.  Sid and Olli got into such a fierce debate, with one not willing to cheer against the newly-founded Halifax women’s team and the other insisting they all had to support his countrywoman who was playing for Edmonton, that they got even more stares on the bus than the other guys did.

Nobody was happy when Genie then told them she felt she had to be neutral, and in fact she would encourage them to split themselves up between both sides or be neutral like her.  Olli even raised the question as to whether they would think Genie didn’t care about how things went in women’s hockey, and Sid raised the much more concerning question of whether that would give the media such a story to write about them that they wouldn’t write about the game.  But ultimately, Genie decided, they were going to attract too much of the media attention anyway, so she simply ordered everyone to talk about women’s hockey as much as possible if they were interviewed, and insisted upon her neutrality.

The game was great.  The stands had a pretty good crowd, and a very loud one, and it was an action packed final, the score zigzagging back and forth, with two goals that would’ve been right at home on an NHL highlight reel.  Finally, late in the third period, Mallory Deluce suddenly caught fire and scored two goals in as many minutes, which ultimately became the victory for Halifax.  When the Clarkson Cup was at last won, everyone in the arena was on their feet.  Not that the winners noticed; Genie watched them pile onto each other, the way she had done multiple times before but now might never do again, something she was aware of when she was dead certain she was within her final months and possibly even weeks in the NHL.

For just a single moment in time she wondered what it might have been like to be one of them, if maybe she’d even come over to play with them instead of with the Penguins.  But then again, she wouldn’t have left Agidel Ufa for that.  And when she looked over at her teammates, Sid and the ones he’d won over to his side all hugging and laughing and throwing friendly taunts at Olli and his group, and she let that go.

At least until a few hours later, after interviews, and meeting with both teams, and she and Sid both spending some time partying with the Halifax girls, when they’d settled into hotel rooms to grab a few hours of sleep before an early bus back to Toronto, and Sid had dropped off next to her.  Genie was tired herself, and down to her bones after such an exciting night, but she found it hard to sleep.

She kept thinking about both those teams, and about her young years with Agidel Ufa, and her four times at the Olympics.  She knew she wouldn’t trade her years on the Penguins for anything, and yet she felt sorry, and the thought kept intruding, especially when she still didn’t have any concrete plans for the months following her retirement, that _this didn’t have to be the end_.

Still, she told herself, this was when she’d been planning to be a mother.  One of the hardest parts about this year for her and Sid both was being away from Igor all the time, and one of the things that was supposed to be decided was that any traveling she did, their son did with her.  If she played for another hockey team they wouldn’t be able to do that.  Also, that traveling was supposed to be in Russia, but when she thought of the prospect of being away from Sid all the time and Igor half the time for that long, she just _could not_ bear the thought.  If she was to play, it would have to be in North America, and as close to Pennsylvania as possible.

When an hour or so later she was still awake, on impulse she pulled out her phone.  At that point in time, everyone she knew in North America had to be asleep, and she knew Sasha probably was busy with her students  But she thought most of her friends in Moscow might not mind her calling.  The first two people she called didn’t answer-at least one of them, she suspected, was sleeping in to possibly noon. After them, she called Anna Prugova, who had gone to Moscow to recuperate from injury, and she picked up.  For the first few minutes, because they hadn’t talked in a bit, Anna talked about her rehab and Genie talked about the game, but then she asked, “Do you think Russia would forgive me if I chose to play for a woman’s team over here?”

A pause, and then, “Do you want to?”

“I don’t know.  I think I might.”

“Then if I told you they wouldn’t, none of our other friends would ever forgive me, and I would have to live in fear of the girls who might have been your teammates finding out.  Especially if that Pittsburgh woman’s team the rumor keeps popping up about does come into existence.  What’s the latest on that anyway?”

“Not really sure,” said Genie.  “Mario never says anything about it in either my or Sid’s earshot anymore.  Sid seems to think that’s evidence it actually might happen.”  But she must not get her hopes up, she reminded herself.

But if it did happen, she found herself thinking, she would sign on.  She might even take a year off and then sign if it took that long to come into being.  That team would absolutely be worth playing for.

And it seemed Anna was thinking the exact same thing as she was, because she said, “Do it, Zhenya.  I know it’s not something you’ve been interested in before, but you deserve your place in Pittsburgh’s sports pantheon, right beside your husband and your unofficial father-in-law…”

 

  1. _Daughter-in-Law_ -2015



 

Having the reception at Consol had been the smartest idea anybody had come up with for the wedding.  It gave Sid something to look forward to during the all the parts of the day he inevitably found annoying, it relaxed him and Genie both once they arrived, and it even got them out of having to dance.  Instead they just opened the reception by skating around and sort of swaying to Nickelback’s “Never Gonna Be Alone.”  A whole group of their teammates had insisted a wedding having a Canadian groom required the first dance to be to Nickelback.  A group whose members were all conveniently married already, and so could not be forced to dance to them at their own weddings.

Another lap around the ice with her father, and then everyone else got on, and her bridal duties were officially over until the cake showed up.  Noone even objected when she went to change out of the dress, since it wasn’t the easiest thing in the world to skate in, and also, Russian or not, she generally preferred to be wearing sleeves when she was on the ice.

By the time she came back in a sweater and jeans, some hockey sticks had appeared from somewhere, and Sid, still in his tux, was trying to teach basic skills to a small knot of kids in a limited amount of clear ice.  He was also occasionally glancing over at Mario, who was off the ice, having what looked like a pretty intense conversation on the phone with someone.

He stayed there for the next ten minutes, during which Genie found herself teaching one of her Moscow friends how to stop on the ice without grabbing the boards, and being introduced to another one’s kid.  But when he at last finished and got back on the ice, she happened to be near the entrance, and she noticed he looked a little stunned, which wasn’t that normal for him.  She first wondered if he would need to talk to Sid, but instead he turned towards her.

He reached her just as Yaneska was dragging Tanya off to meet her brother, leaving Genie alone, and giving him a prime opportunity to offer his arm.  She thought she even heard someone clap as she took it, as if it was just another “welcome to the family” gesture.

But when they were underway and skating fast enough that it would be difficult for anyone to eavesdrop on them, he said, “I just got a call from the NWHL.  It seems they’re doing scouting calls right now, just to see where they might be able to expand if the league as it is right now works out.”

“So there will be team?  Here in Pittsburgh?” Genie asked.  She liked the idea, definitely, of having a group of girls to cheer for.  Maybe even some of them could be Russian.

He shook his head, “Not for a few more years, at least.  What worries me is the hint I’ve just received that it would be much more likely to happen if you would commit to it beforehand.  To be dropping those kinds of hints this early on indicates it might never happen unless they could center it around you.”

“Oh,” said Genie.  Two powerful opposite thoughts charged through her at once.  On one hand she _couldn’t_ leave Sid, _couldn’t_ leave the Penguins.  Also, the thought of a whole team being created just for her, all of it relying on _her_ , made her ill, beyond what it even made sense for her to feel, because she didn’t deserve that and she didn’t want it, and it was just beyond absurd.  On the other, surely if she could get this team formed, give this opportunity to the women who would sign on it, including maybe even her fellow Russian women, she _couldn’t_ refuse to do that.

 _Selfish bitch._   Lesha’s old words came back to her, and on today, of all days, when she’d thought she’d be free of them forever.  But then again, she’d always known he hadn’t been entirely wrong.

“Of course,” said Mario, smiling, “I’m not sure how trying to release you from your current contract would work.  This isn’t something the CBA has anticipated, so even if you declared yourself retired from NHL hockey, your salary might still count against the cap.  So as owner of this team still, I would be none too pleased if you deserted it any time soon.”

“Then I will not any time soon,” said Genie, but she was aware, even as she said it, that this question would be one that would be far from answered in the years to come, especially if her body started to go during the final years of her contract.

“Good,” he said, and they watched as Sid got checked hard by a ten-year-old (where had he come from anyway?), and tumbled to the ice.  He was humorously embellishing it, yelling at someone to call the ref, which instead got an eight-year-old girl to skate over, making a sound like a whistle while putting a finger across her upper lip.  They both laughed.  “They grow up so fast,” said Mario.  “Mostly.”

It was so easy for Sid, Genie thought.  He knew exactly how he wanted to go about being the role model, how he wanted to inspire and what he wanted to teach.  She had always known the basics of those things for herself, but there had always been complications on both subjects…

 

  1. _Advocate_ -2041



 

As the introduction was spoken for her, Genie remained behind the curtain, rereading the messages loaded into her watch.  Words of encouragement were there from practically everyone in her family, except Anya and little Katie, who were seated together in the front row.  Even playing in the final for the Cup had never gotten her this anxious.

But then her name was announced, and the audience was clapping, and it was time to go out and make a speech about the subject far more important than any she had ever been involved in before.  It was also time to expose her darkest secret to the world.  So she stepped to the podium, looking down at the banner in front of the group responsible for this event, this group that had dedicated themselves to tackling the awful domestic violence problem that plagued Russia to this day, and began to speak.  “Hello, everyone…”  She looked over the group of faces as she introduced herself, made general comments about domestic violence and how much damage it did.  She was surprised by how much of the audience was male.

“How do I know all of this, you may ask?”  Here came the moment.  “When I was 17, and first attracted interest from Agidel Ufa, I also attracted interest from one of the assistant coaches.”  She wouldn’t use his name.  Not when his children and second wife were all still alive.  It was only his own death the previous year that made her feel able to make this speech.  “He was in his thirties.  At the time, I believed that didn’t matter, that there was nothing wrong with my having a relationship with such an older man, even one who would soon be in a direct position of power over me.  In fact, I was flattered that he thought me worthy of his attention.  I’d never been taught to see the warning signs he showed, that would have been obvious had I ever been guided to look for them…”

Even if this was the first time she was talking about it publically, she’d hashed out the ins and outs of her relationship with Lesha extensively, first with psychologists, then, over the previous year, with a pair of domestic violence experts she had trusted to keep things confidential.  There were things they had said about him that she still didn’t agree with.  But it had finally made her certain, once and for all, that she had indeed been abused, emotionally as well as physically, until it no longer shook her to use the word, the way it once had even in the privacy of her own mind.  She used a lot of the things they had said to her to tell her story.

She could tell she had the audience spellbound, probably more with shock than anything else.  By the time she was telling them about her flight from the airport and that first terrifying night in a Helsinki hotel, some of them were starting to relax, perhaps thinking the story was over.  But Genie went further then.  She talked about how on edge she often was with guys in the years after, how long it took her to relax around her teammates. 

And then she talked more, about how during the first four years during her relationship with Sid, she had just been waiting for the day when he would finally raise his hand to her, because deep down, she hadn’t been able to believe he never would, and how even after he insisted he wouldn’t, it took her another year before she’d had no further fear of it.  Then she talked about how his words had impacted her, made her feel like she couldn’t be good enough for Sid because of her own dreams and wishes for her life, made her feel like a horrible person.

“And even now,” she finished, “thirty-five years after I literally ran from him, I still sometimes struggle with the impact of his words, the way he made me see myself as weak and selfish and faithless.  That is what abuse can do to you.  When I consider the statistics, and how many of my Russian sisters this happened to back then, and how many it still happens to today, it breaks my heart.  That is why I came here today to tell you all and everyone else this story.  So that the world can know what it can do to anybody.  Also so they know it can be recovered from, at least mostly, but also why it _must_ be stopped.”

The applause was liked that of a packed home arena, which she supposed this audience was, in a way, but there were far fewer of them, and still they sounded as loud to Genie’s ears.  Many of them were standing, most prominently her two daughters.  Anya had tears in her eyes.

 

  1. _Bride_ -2015



 

They were both exhausted by the time they got away.  It had been such a long day, going through all the hustle and bustle and emotions of getting married, and that whole conversation with Mario at the wedding reception about the possibility of her becoming the face of a Pittsburgh’s woman’s team hadn’t helped.

Genie thought that was part of the reason that by the time they staggered out of the cab and into their home, and she’d had to approach it all the while thinking about _their home_ and _forever_ , a jocular comment from Sid about how he would have tried to carry her over the threshold, but he feared that would actually make them _more_ likely to stumble, made her just burst into tears.

“Hey, hey,” Sid said gently, taking her arm.  “It’s fine.  You know it’s fine.  I’d rather have you than any wife I could carry anyway.”

“Not that,” she sobbed.  “Just…still hard to believe is happening.”

“Genie, it is,” he said, and kissed her fiercely.  “And I know what you’re thinking, and you don’t need to.  We’re planning it out, and we’re doing it right, and just remember, you hesitate, the other guy steals the puck.  Come on, we’ll get over the threshold together.”

They did, holding hands, stumble free.  When the door was closed they fell into each other, mouths finding each other again and again, but Genie could not help but be aware that there was too little energy to it. 

She’d so been looking forward to this night, of how thrilling it would be to make love to Sidney for the first time with him as her _husband_.  Especially on that day, just a handful of weeks ago, when she’d looked at him, and realized for the first time that the little tiny stab of fear that always had been with her when they’d been together, the thing she’d never even noticed while it had been there, was now gone.  He still didn’t know why she’d been so randy that night.  But now that it was time for the wedding night, she wasn’t sure he would even be able to properly get it up, or if she herself had the energy necessary. 

When they came up for air, Genie found herself leaning against the door just to be sure she could keep standing, and Sid was leaning suspiciously heavily against her too.  “What now?” came out of her mouth.

“Besides the obvious?” he panted.  “Well, by the time we’re done with the honeymoon, it’ll be high time to really start our preparation for next season.  If we go to see all the rest of your family and friends, we’ll probably have to start serious training in Russia; you’ll have to find us places to go.  Then we go and finally win ourselves a second Cup.  Then we go on doing that sort of thing until we retire.  Then we have a huge family, enough children that at least a few of them will be interested in playing hockey and joining the NHL, and also there will definitely some who will have children of their own, so we’ll have grandchildren too.  That sound like a good plan?”

 _When we will have all those children_? Genie wondered.  Obviously some of them would be adopted, but Sid had never had that desire to give orphans home that she had, and she still had no idea when she was going to have them when most of her fertile years would be spent playing.

“Of course it’s a basic overview of things, mainly,” Sid continued, leaning in and stealing another kiss.  “But we don’t have our full schedule yet, and there’s a limit of what we can do until then, so…”

“Yes, true,” she agreed, and kissed him again.  They just stayed there kissing for a while, putting off having to admit they were probably too tired to do anything else at the moment.  But then it became an effort to hold her head up enough to kiss, and she said, “I worry we going to start married life passing out against door.”

“Bad idea,” Sid agreed.  “Bad for our backs.  We need to get upstairs.”

They did shed their clothes en route, but it was them taking their own clothes off, rather than each other’s.  Still, it was nice to be skin on skin when they slid between the sheets together, and to kiss more, even as he said, “We can have our wedding night after a good nap, right?”

Ultimately it ended up being their wedding morning; it was a good thing their plane was an afternoon one.  But there was a charm of its own to that, staying snug and cuddly under the covers even after they were done with the sex part, at least until Sid declared he was going crazy just lying there doing nothing and claimed the first shower.

 

  1. _First Adopter_ -2048



 

Two days after the law was at last repealed, Sid and Genie found their latest child in the orphanage near Magnitogorsk they’d visited time and again, always hating that their ability to help the children there remained so limited, that even when they were so ready to give one of them what they needed most, the law declared that because Sid was a dual Canadian-American citizen they could not (he’d never regretted taking the American citizenship, he insisted, but there was no denying it had caused them a headache or two over the years).  His name was Kador Makarov, although now of course it was to be Kador Crosby, he was a month shy of his second birthday, he was already big enough that Katie commented on his weight when she tried to lift him, he had curly brown hair and dark brown eyes, and he was boisterous and noisy.

Normally they preferred to do their adoptions quietly, give all the children time to adjust before they made any official announcements.  As it was, they did make sure to notify everyone in the family first, even though it took them nearly a full day to get in touch with Jasper.  But they’d already been known to have gone to that orphanage; the media had known they were likely to go specifically to that one immediately and probably adopt someone out of there before too long, and they actually did have an important statement to make with this one.  (They’d had some to make with Anya too, but it had been a long time before she’d been up to that.)

So when all five of their older children were there and were followed by Denis and his wife and two children, the latter came in with the announcement that the paparazzi had practically barricaded the place.  They thought they even heard the vague din of it as they did the last of the paperwork.  “I suppose we have to go out there immediately,” said Xiaoyang.

“Won’t it just get worse if we don’t?” said Jasper.

“It will,” Sidney confirmed.  “Come on, let’s get this over with.”

The two parents stepped out first, Genie carrying Kador, followed by Igor and Jasper standing protectively to either side of their three sisters, although Anya might or might not have been happy about that, Denis and his family bringing up the rear.  They were all of them barely out the doors when microphones had been shoved wherever they could reach, and so many reporters were asking so many questions at once it was initially impossible to understand any of them. Sidney visibly jerked his head towards Genie; they’d long agreed she had to be the one to speak here. 

Another boon came in the form of Polina Tarashova, the reporter Genie had been friends with for a few years now, making her way to the front.  She knew what Genie needed; she got her own microphone in front of her and started with, “So it looks like you’ve now adopted your newest child.  Tell us a little bit about him,” and Genie already had a short account of Kador’s history prepared, as well as their meeting with him and the first words he had said to them, and his first meeting with Katie, because that made a good story.  She had to talk for a little longer than expected; she didn’t want the next question until they were close to their car, and the reporters weren’t allowing them to walk very fast.

But at last they were close enough, and she was able to successfully signal Polina with her eyes as she wrapped up, “But Jasper was quick to tell us it was worth the whole long trip to be here with us and his new little brother.”

So they had just as much of a walk as she’d wanted when Polina then asked, “You know you are effectively the first American family to adopt here since the ban was lifted.  Do you have anything to say about what that means to you?”

And Genie gave a very long-prepared response: “I don’t know if being the first really means as much to us as does the simple fact that we’ve done it, and now we have a new baby, and his historical significance doesn’t mean that much to him right now.  We’re just glad to have him, especially when we consider the still grim statistics for orphans here in Russia.  There are still so many children who will suffer the fate he might have if we hadn’t been allowed to adopt him, thrown out of the system as adults with absolutely no prospects.  There is still work to be done for them; I have urged people before about this and I will urge them again now.  But at least the repeal of this law means there will be less.”

Perfect timing; they’d reached the car, and Igor was already sliding past the reporters and into the driver’s seat.  Genie got herself in next to where he already had the car seat set up.

 

  1. _Grandmother_ -2055



 

It had taken both of Jasper’s parents a little time to warm up to his wife.  It seemed he’d barely met Kylie before they’d gotten engaged, and Sid especially had been worried about her motives for marrying him.  But when she’d gotten pregnant with their first grandchild, and the two of them had moved to Pittsburgh, Genie had spent much of her time with her daughter-in-law, who had been grateful for the help after she’d been put on bed rest, and she’d gotten to know her a little better.  She was a good kid, impulsive, yes, and a bit self-important, but she really did love Jasper, and she really was anxious to be a good mother.

It was even enough that Genie was willing to ignore what she was yelling at her husband as she lay on the backseat, gripping her mother-in-law’s hands tightly, while he struggled to get the car through the snow.  The hospital was so close, and yet the snowplows had done a horrible job.  It snowed so little nowadays in America no one was prepared for it anymore. Genie was starting to wonder if maybe they should’ve had the baby in Russia.  The hospital might not have been as good, but at least they never would’ve had to worry about getting to it.

Not that Kylie realized that, as she moaned, “I suppose you know how to deliver a baby in the snow, Genie?  Like they did that all the time in Soviet Russia, right?”

“Don’t know, Soviet Russia fall in 1991, when five,” said Genie, though she doubted the history lesson took. 

They finally turned the corner, and Jasper and Kylie both screamed as they nearly hit another car, but thankfully didn’t, and now the hospital was right in front of them, but so were piles of snow.  “Maybe if I put the car in park and we carried her?”  Jasper suggested weakly.

“That,” said Kylie, “is the stupidest idea you have suggested yeeeeettt…”  That last word turned into a screech as she arched in pain.

Genie wasn’t sure it was, actually.  She considered Kylie’s weight, and both Jasper’s and her own strength-that certainly wasn’t what it had once been, especially with her age, but even if she had a baby in her, Kylie wasn’t the biggest of women; they might just be able to manage it.  The pavement looked wet, but pretty well sanded; they wouldn’t have to worry about ice.  They probably wouldn’t have to get her all the way to the building; as soon as they attracted attention they could a stretcher would show up.

“Put in park,” she said, and they both looked at her as if she was crazy, so she repeated it, sharply and a little louder.  Before Kylie could protest, Jasper had pulled to the curb and was parking.  She did have time to complain about his always doing what his mother said, before she squealed as the two of them picked her up, although she didn’t struggle, perhaps too shocked that they were actually doing this.

It was about three very difficult minutes of trying to hold her up, and not slip in the slush in the gutter before they made it onto the sidewalk, while also trying to get closer to the hospital, before, as Genie hoped, the stretcher came flying out, and they were able to pilot some pretty high-tech ones out these days.  The minute they had Kylie onto it, it took off, flying her in, and her husband and mother-in-law both had to run to keep up.  It felt kind of like charging over the ice, except she was older, had slept less, and wasn’t at all certain on her feet.

Ultimately the baby took two more hours to come out.  By then Sid was on his way, by taxi, and with an assurance he’d make sure the car had gotten into the hospital garage, so that was one less thing to worry about.  Jasper looked like he was going to faint by the time the stretcher slid Kylie onto a bed, and then again when the nurse arrived with a scanner and gave them hair-raising results, and then another time when Kylie greeted the doctor with a huge stream of profanity.

When they at last they heard the first tiny wail, his knees actually did buckle, and Genie gently took hold of her son’s arm to help him stay up.  She was just thinking maybe he should’ve followed her own country’s custom and stayed out of it, but then she saw the amazed wonder on his face, and recalled the similar expression his father had had, when they’d first heard Igor’s cries all those years ago.  She’d had an easy delivery, nothing like what poor Kylie had just gone through, and yet the emotions that had first beset her then ran through her once again now.

“We should thank you…” he started.

“No,” Genie cut him off.  “I’m your mother.  This is what I do.”

 

  1. _The Captain’s Wife_ -2016



 

This time, the second time her husband passed the Stanley Cup to her, they were able to kiss under it.  That might have been the only time outside their wedding they’d ever even kissed in front of more than a handful of people, but Sid went for it as happily as she did, both of them too high on joy and triumph to care.  Even the contrary yells of the hostile audience couldn’t do a thing to Genie. 

This time, as she lifted it, she could see the glint of not only her own name on it, but those of four more women, since Wick had finally gotten her turn the previous year.  She’d once thought that surely having it up in the air for the second time couldn’t possibly be as exciting.  And it was true that it wasn’t exciting in the same way; there wasn’t that _oh God this is happening_ that there’d been the previous time.  But after all they’d been through the past seven years, the injuries, and the disappointments, and taking the plunge with the man she loved into romance and finding forever with him, and especially this past year, well, coming back to this place, beneath the Stanley Cup held up in her hands, brought its own kind of new elation.

So did turning around and having another girl to hand it to next.  Haley seemed to appear in place by magic, half-bowed down, and that even in her current euphoria, Genie briefly worried about her back pain possibly making a return. But one look at the girl’s face after she pulled herself up, and she knew that if it had, Haley wouldn’t be feeling it for a little while yet.  She didn’t even flinch as they made the pass, Genie relaxed her arms, and her teammate felt the weight of holding 35 points of Stanley Cup up for the first time. She maybe bent slightly, before she had it managed, so little she might have not even noticed.  Had Genie herself done the same thing seven years ago?  She didn’t think it was even quite detectable on a TV screen.

When Haley had handed the Cup over to Trevor, though, she sagged a little bit more.  Still not enough to be noticeable to anyone who wasn’t looking, but Genie was.  It was easy enough to skate to her and give her a full-out hug, and as she did, she whispered, “Don’t break back.  Is very hard to recover from over only one summer.”

“Oh, you’re no fun,” laughed Haley, and Genie had never heard her so joyful.  She heard a few too many cameras click as the two of them pulled away, Haley still mirthful.  It would make a perfect picture for everyone to look at, especially since there had apparently been a few rumors claiming the two of them didn’t get along.  For the most part they were untrue, although sometimes Genie feared Haley was still a little scared of her, after that misfortune back in 2013.

Haley was then called to the side of the boards where her family had appeared, and Genie didn’t get the chance to talk to her again for a few hours after that.  That was when party in the locker room was starting to wind down, and the two of them found themselves taking a breather together, leaning against each other as they stumbled down a corridor Genie hoped was the one that would take them outside, because the smells she’d been surrounded by had started to get to her and she really wanted some fresh air.  She even said so, though she wasn’t sure whether she’d said it in Russian or English before Haley said, “Oh yeah, definitely.  This isn’t the way to it, though; this is.”

So Genie let Haley pulled her through some more corridors, losing track of where they were completely.  Irresponsible of her, especially when she still had the A on her jersey.  She was mildly surprised she’d been allowed to keep it after the wedding, but then again, she and Sid had been involved for four years by then, so demanding she give it up at that point would’ve just been silly.  When she found herself talking out loud about that, she knew she was mixing her languages, and Haley didn’t respond, maybe didn’t even bother trying to understand her, just led her along, now looking around to see if anyone else was there to hear, until she finally pushed through some large metal door.  “Hope we don’t set off alarm,” she commented.

“Don’t worry; it would say if we were.” 

And yes, fresh air.  Floating into Genie’s lungs, though her skin, nice to have, but it also made her aware of something else.  “I want shower more.  Hot shower.”

“Oh, wow, you said it,” Haley agreed, running her hands through her champagne-soaked hair.  “God, we are filthy, and I am so sore.  And if we went into the showers in the locker room, the men would look at us funny.  Even if they were polite enough not to look at us literally, or we used the closed stalls, they’d still look at us funny.”  That was true.  It wasn’t even like either of them hadn’t been seen naked countless times by most of the team by now.  But somehow enjoying a hot shower in the middle of a party was considered different from taking one after a practice or game, even when the party itself was happening after a game. 

That seemed to Genie to be very stupid at that moment.  “Men just don’t understand,” she said.  “There’s so much they don’t understand at all.”

 

  1. _Hockey Mom_ -2050



 

Evgenia Malkin Crosby had been seen at many a woman’s hockey game in Russia, especially in the last decade, after she’d started to spend more time in the country campaigning against domestic violence.  But it always caused a stir in the audience when she attended one.  Even here, where it ought to be expected, given her daughter was playing in it.

Since Xiaoyang’s declaration that she would play for Russia, her mother’s country had greeted her with reactions that ranged across the spectrum, from welcome and gratitude to suspicion and resentment.  It hadn’t really helped that she was not the Crosby kid everyone had thought would turn professional.  It was supposed to be Igor, who had the genes, and then it was supposed to be one of the other boys; no doubt too many people were still holding out for little Kador to do it.  Xiaoyang had struggled to get ice time under this team’s last coach.  But she was getting it now, and Genie watched her score two goals as her team won.

The first time Genie had entered the locker room for the junior national team after her daughter had joined it, she’d had to give a speech, shake hands with everyone, and exchange at least a word or two with most of Xiaoyang’s teammates.  They didn’t make such a big deal about it anymore, for the most part, and usually she waited same as all the other parents around.  But it was the Russian team’s last game before the Junior World Championships, and Genie actually went there that day because she knew they’d want to see her.

Everyone was in high spirits, and she was greeted with cheers.  Even the scrubas cleaning the floor stopped and beeped; someone must have programmed them.  So were most of her opening words.  She wasn’t sure if the ones in the back were even able to hear all of them.

Thankfully that calmed down a little by the time she was saying, “I didn’t have a Junior World Championships.  They didn’t have any when I was a teenager.”

“But you were able to play in the senior championships, right?  Starting when you were sixteen,” one of the girls pointed out.

“I was,” Genie said.  “And that was an experience that helped reshape my life in its way.  But it’s not the same thing.”  The memories that came out of that remained to that day, the mix of elation and isolation that describing to these young women was out of the question.  “After all,” she said instead, “we weren’t even true contenders for the medals, let alone gold.”  Which this group was not favored to win, but they seriously might.  “We weren’t the kind of team you can be, if you want to be.

The best teams I was on,” she continued, “both when I played for Russia, and when I played for Pittsburgh, were the ones that knew each other, who connected with each other.  Who played the game for each other, and for their shared goal.”  She noticed she wasn’t impressing everyone, but enough of these girls were listening avidly.  “Watching you today, I know you can definitely be that team.”  She spoke it with force, tried to display how much she truly believed that.

“You have a chance most Russian women before you never had,” she concluded.  “I don’t even mean just the gold; I mean everything.  Doing all you can might mean silver, but that would still be an opportunity taken.  Remember that.  I’ll be cheering you on.”

Cheers, claps, and then their coach took over, and the spotlight was off her.

“I didn’t embarrass you too much?” she whispered to Xiaoyang when she got a chance to later, in English, although she supposed a number of her teammates might know it anyway.

“No more than had to happen,” her daughter whispered back.  “I mean, we couldn’t get away with you not talking to them, so…”

 

  1. _Nurse-_ 2016



It didn’t exactly feel like 2011 again, but it didn’t feel far off.

Sid did not have a headache when he woke up, which was an improvement from the previous day.  But he went to fix them breakfast while Genie showered, and she came into the kitchen with her hair still wet to find him hunched over the sink.  She didn’t think anyone else would’ve heard the tiny groans coming from him, but she had all too much experience with them.

He hadn’t even been in a state to turn the kitchen lights off, so she did it, after a quick glance at the stove to confirm he hadn’t put anything on yet.  Thankfully there was light enough through the window that once she got over to the sink she could pretty much see him.  The basin was empty; at least he hadn’t actually been sick.  Yet.  “How long here?” she asked.

“Dunno.”  He sounded truly miserable.  “It’s not…it’s in that place where it should get worse, and it’s not getting worse, and I know it probably won’t, but…thanks for turning the lights off, though; I think that’s helping.  You might even be able to pull me up.”

“Too lazy to pull self up?” she quipped.  For a moment she feared that was too far; certainly it would’ve been had anyone else said it.  But Genie was his wife now, and as far as she was concerned, she could say what she wanted to say to him, especially if he could do with hearing it. 

It worked; Sid rose.  He immediately tilted his head in the way she recognized, getting his eyes to the safest part of the kitchen wall to look at, where nothing was on the wall and the least light got to from the windows.  “I think…” he said.  “I’ll try to do breakfast.”

“No,” said Genie, because she had zero tolerance for Sid torturing himself like this out of pride.  “You go lie down.  I make breakfast.”

“Genie…”

“No,” she repeated.  “Go now, before I start nagging.”

Sid grumbled, but he went; she listened to him make his way to the living room.  Not the most ideal choice of room, but he wouldn’t be there for long.

She made them plain oatmeal, set it up on the breakfast island by the light coming through the window.  She’d gotten good last time around at navigating through dimly lit rooms.  She’d even done so more than a few times in the aftermath of having torn ligaments in both her legs.  She got to the living room without turning any more lights on.

Sid was curled up on the couch.  In the fetal position, which was bad.  With a pillow on his head, which was worse.  Genie was careful as she lifted it up.  “You want I bring food here?” she offered, hoping he said yes, because she was going to do it anyway, and she really didn’t want to have to argue with him.

“If I can eat it,” said Sid, trying to make himself sound as skeptical as possible.  If he couldn’t, Genie thought, it was really time to worry.

Thankfully he could, though he did so slowly, trying to keep his gaze away from the living room lamp.  Genie wished she could turn that off, but the room would be difficult to navigate without that light.  She didn’t mind banging her shins once or twice, but Sid would start getting anxious about her getting injured when the team couldn’t afford to lose her.

So she tried to position herself between Sid and the lamp as best she could, and after she was done eating she waited while he worked away at his breakfast.  She didn’t even bother talk; it was one of those times between them where there really wasn’t a need.  This was her life, she thought, and it was still good, and it wouldn’t last forever…

  1. _Widow_ -2075



It was when Evgenia Malkin woke up on her 89th birthday, alone in the Magnitogorsk apartment, that she first started to think she might be living too long.

The people in too many of the pictures on her walls had already been dead when she’d hung them, when she’d moved in five months ago. Her parents. Denis and his wife. Sid. Max and Flower. Sanja. Sasha had still been alive, but now she was dead two months.

And she hadn’t even hung any pictures of the two children she’d lived long enough to bury.  She couldn’t face them that way. Especially when the doctors were now giving Anya about half a year.

But here she was, still pretty much healthy, waking up to a busy day.  When Sid had first gotten ill, she’d pretty much handed her hockey school over to her longtime assistant, but she still came in to work with them every few weeks, and when she was going to be joining them for the morning, she wanted to be at the rink before they were.  After lunch she’d be meeting with the people who had now been running her foundation for nearly a decade, after she and Sid decided to start cutting their travel down.  Not that they could’ve ever stopped it entirely. They’d been trying to get her to come to Moscow to speak, and she suspected she would eventually do it.  She also had three different people she intended to skype.

She had developed a routine by now.  The shower was the hardest part of it, the time where she had the least distraction from how empty the apartment was, and how Sid wasn’t back in bed, or making them coffee or on the phone, with one of the kids.  She wished she could get through it with the same speed she’d had back during her NHL days.  But she was dressed and had coffee and the radio on, and was nearly done eating breakfast when the doorchime beeped. 

Two quick beeps; it was one of her children.  She hadn’t expected any of them today, but she wasn’t really surprised either.  She thought it was probably Igor.

It was him and Yolina.  They’d been married a few years now, but Genie hadn’t seen her since Sasha’s funeral, when she’d seemed too struck by the loss of her mother to talk much.  But now she had that gentle smile back on her face, as her husband said, “Happy birthday, mother.  We thought you shouldn’t be alone today.  We’re in town for at least a couple of days, longer if you wish.”

“I’m going to the rink in half an hour,” she had to tell them, but even so she was smiling, the way it was hard for her to nowadays.  Some weeks it only happened on the ice.

It was Yolina’s first look at her mother-in-law’s apartment; Genie could see her mentally tallying the number of pictures of Sid she’d put in place, trying to keep herself from ever being without him entirely.  She also saw her spot some of the dust in the corners; she was far better at that than anyone ought to be.  Especially nowadays, when almost everyone had automated cleaning apparatus, though Genie had kept her old set even as it didn’t work as well anymore, because she couldn’t stand the buzzing the more recent models all let out.  Also, her entire life, she’d had a distressing indifference to hockey.  So she said, “Do you want me to clean things up a bit while you’re out?”

“You should’ve seen her last time we visited Kador,” said Igor.  Genie could imagine.  Things had been different when he’d been married, but now that was over, and meanwhile he was a man who would never change, crazy as it had driven his poor father. 

“I’ll be happy to come with you, if you want,” said Igor.  “I don’t know how much use I’ll be; it’s been far too long since I’ve been on the ice.  It would be a day I’d prefer you not tell everybody I’m the biological son if none of them know it, though.”

“I’ll try,” said Genie.  “They may not.”  She wasn’t sure all the kids there even knew the first thing about her husband, or her general family history.  Those of them that kept playing hockey would learn it later, right along with the names of the rest of the legends.  But Sidney Crosby was now one of yesterday’s stars, a name in sports history books, a bunch of old videos on whatever video streamsite was most popular these days.  Maybe he was still a name all the children knew in Canada, the way she was here in Russia, but majority of children in the rest of the world had never heard of him.

She knew it was ridiculous of her to feel it.  It wasn’t like he wasn’t still one of the biggest names in hockey history.  But every time she heard someone tell someone else who she’d been married to, and that other person had asked some variant of “Who?” it felt like he’d died all over again.

But for the most part, Genie kept that feeling to herself.  She certainly wasn’t going to go talking about it in this situation.

When they climbed into Igor’s car shortly afterwards, the door now able to detach to stay out of the way, Genie tried to take comfort, as she had throughout her life, in seeing the streets and buildings of her home town.  But even that was getting harder to do now.  When she looked at any given block, she could no longer remember how long the oldest buildings had been there, and it was no longer likely any of them had been there during her childhood. It was as if the world itself was moving away from her completely, leaving her behind to die surrounded by memories of what no longer was.

Focus forward, she told herself.  Focus on the students, the ones she probably wouldn’t live to see become adults.  Focus on what she could still create to leave behind.

 

  1. _Aunt_ -2041



 

When she and Denis first came in, it looked like their children had had a good afternoon in each other’s company.  Xiaoyang and Anfisa were sprawled out on the floor in such a way that told their parents they’d probably gotten exhausted earlier, and were still giggling to each other about something. On the other side of the room, Anya had been pouring over her tablet, and there was a smile on her face when she looked up and greeted them.

But then Anfisa groaned, and said, “Oh, no, Xiaoneshka, they’re back.  We’re in trouble now.”

“Trouble?”  Denis looked disturbed.  “Why?”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” said Anya.  “They just went into your office for a little bit.  I didn’t even hear any running around or throwing of things in there, so I don’t think they could’ve disturbed much.”

“It was her fault,” Xiaoyang declared.  “She was the one who did it.  She went around and put all the pieces of paper from all the folders into different folders.  I didn’t do anything.”

Denis groaned, then said to Anfisa, “Your mother will talk to you later.”  That scared his daughter far more than anything else he could’ve said.  “And you, Anya, didn’t ask them what they were doing in there?”

Anya had lost her smile, but gone were the days she quailed when any adult spoke harshly to her.  “How should I have known there were going to do that?” she protested.

“You really should have asked,” he mother told her, though very gently.  “You know, I think you and I should help your uncle get his papers back in order.  It shouldn’t take that long, then, should it?”

In the end they had to drag the younger kids into the study too, to find out just which papers they’d switched.  Then all three of the children needed to use the bathroom, and at a look from his sister, Denis let them all go.  “We don’t tell Anya she can’t use the bathroom,” she explained when they were alone.  “You don’t even want to know why.”

“And you’re seriously planning on adopting another one,” Denis shook his head, gave her a bemused smile.  “When you and Sid could just be waiting for your first grandchild instead at this point.”

“But that might be years away, Denis.  Besides, you won’t mind that much when we take Anfisa in for the evening day after tomorrow so you and Nata can have your night out.”

“Well,” the smile turned into a rueful grin, “Better warn your husband not to leave any of his papers related to the Penguins lying around, Zhenya.”

“I’ll will,” she said, but her voice came out a little weak, because it hit her then that these were the first genuine smiles she’d gotten from her brother since the day she had taken the podium to speak about domestic violence and destroyed the image he’d still had of a man he’d admired even more than she’d ever realized.  They’d never directly talked about him since, or even much before then, but Genie knew her older brother, however many time periods in their lives there’d been that they hadn’t seen each other enough.

And he too recognized her reaction.  The smile was instantly gone, and Genie felt terrible.

Then he said, “Zhenya…I…I still remember that day, finding you at home after the party, and I know you explained why you didn’t say anything to us, but I still can’t understand that.  I’m still trying to face the fact that someone hurt my baby sister so much she had trouble walking, and I completely failed her as a brother.  And even after you got away…and it was Oksana Kondakova you were involved with, wasn’t it?  You might not have identified her, but that was obvious to me.  Why has there been so much of my sister’s life that she had to hide from me?”

He just sounded so sad.  Genie moved to hug him, relieved when he just let her.  “I’m so sorry, Denis.  I was always too afraid to tell you and mama and papa everything.  Especially after you and papa reacted the way you did when you first found out about Lesha.”

“I’m sorry too, then,” he whispered.  “I just wish…I feel like we lost so much thirty-five years, and like we’ll never get it back, even now.”

“We have time, now,” she whispered.  “If it’s all over and you haven’t died yet, I think you have time for everything…”

 

  1. _Counterpart_ -2025



 

She certainly hadn’t expected to see Dani Briere here.  In the ten years since her retirement, she’d been out of the spotlight more often than not, though with her children now grown, the recent years had seen her get more active again.  Last she’d heard about her, she’d been off with the other Philadelphia brass, deep in their preparation for the upcoming season.

But here she was, she and Genie shaking hands and saying hi as all the instructors for the upcoming event met with each other and introductions were made for anyone who hadn’t known each other, though most of them had.  Genie was kind of sorry there’d been no chance of getting Sasha across the pond for this.  She would’ve liked to have had the chance to catch up, especially with Kim St-Pierre. Though then again, Dani had never been happy to see her since that whole incident that had marred her second wedding.

She saw, too, how some of the younger women were looking at her and Dani, although at least the older ones knew better, as, of course, did Taylor.  She hoped no one would suggest the two of them wouldn’t need to have any sessions scheduled together.

It was probably in response that Dani stuck close to her as they made their way into the conference room, and managed to get the seat next to her.  The man providing the money wasn’t there yet, and unfortunately they couldn’t start without him, so everyone was just talking.  It was perfectly natural for the two of them to turn to each other and ask how their families were doing.  Genie heard a lot about Cameron’s new job and Caelan’s coming son, Dani’s first grandchild.  She herself had only Igor to talk about, although she and Sid had started the paperwork for adopting their second. 

If they’d been alone, she might have told Dani why their second was going to be adopted, the secret pain Genie supposed she’d talk about publically someday, but wasn’t ready to yet.  But even as it was, the look Dani gave her as she talked seemed all too perceptive.  She’d spent nearly thirty years as a mother, after all, much more than Genie.

When Genie told her the story of Igor embarrassing his parents in front of all four of his grandparents, both of the women on their other sides looked appalled, but Dani laughed harder than Genie had ever seen her do, then shook her head.  “I remember one time,” she started, “when Carson was that age…” It was probably for the better that at that moment their money man finally came in, and the room quieted.

When the meeting was over, and everyone was getting up, Dani said to Genie, “I’d like to come see you and your husband, if he’s willing to have me.  Maybe after you’ve completed the adoption?”

Whether Sid was ready to go for that Genie wasn’t sure.  Maybe he’d be more likely to if he did choose to retire after this season; he’d been wavering back and forth on that for months. 

But she said, “If we don’t have you over then, I think we have you over later.  Maybe years later, but…”

“Eventually you’ll get him to understand?”

“Eventually I get him to give in,” said Genie, and flashed her best grin.  Dani smiled back, although maybe there was a little sadness in it too.  Genie understood it.  Ever since their being on rival teams had paradoxically required them to form their lifelong friendship, they’d wanted people besides the two of them to understand.  There had been people who did; Genie thought Oksana had, in her way.  But not nearly enough.

Still, at least they were doing a session together. During which all the girls would probably get really excited, and maybe sappy over the fact that two women who had once played against each other were now working together.  Also, Genie would be left to contemplate the weirdness of the fact that she was the more famous of the two of them now…

 

  1. _Legend_ -2064  




Not even in the final seconds before the Stanley Cup was officially theirs had Genie felt this crazy watching the clock tick its way down.  Twice the puck flew at the Russian net and she was sure it had gone in, her stomach dropping until she wanted to throw up.  But twice it turned out it hadn’t, and when at three seconds left on the clock one of the players sent the puck safely far away to the other side of the ice, Genie screamed so loud she knew she’d regret it for days afterwards.  Sid even grumbled at her, “Ow.  Genie, are you trying to take away what’s left of my hearing?”

She could tell he was happy too, though.  It probably helped that the game had been against the Americans rather than the Canadians.  Still, that was something she’d thought she’d never live to see, at least before their daughter had gotten involved, him truly happy that Russia had won.

Then again, this was definitely one day Evgenia Malkin, for much of her life, had never dared dream she’d live to see.

When the final buzzer sounded and the Russian team leapt from the bench to pile upon each other in celebration, Genie tried to spot Xiaoyang.  But they were all going too quick, and her eyesight wasn’t quite what it used to be.  So she and Sid got up, ready to hobble down rinkside to be as close up as possible when their daughter got her Olympic gold medal, their children and grandchildren helping them on their way.

Of course the reporters didn’t leave them alone.  Thanks to them, neither saw much of the handshakes, though Genie did at least spot Xiaoyang in the line.  But at least they had the sensitivity to retreat and leave them alone during the medal ceremony.  There was one awkward moment when Samantha tried to climb Sid, but Katie was there a moment later, pulling her daughter off and holding her up high so she could see.

The questions resumed once the ceremony was over, although by then, their children had gotten between Sid and Genie and the reporters, and were taking it upon themselves to answer them instead.  Still, it wasn’t like the two of them had much of anywhere to go just yet.  As the Americans left the ice, the Russian team skated out to pile up for a photo.  Except that some of them got confused about which end of the rink to go to, and had to be called back.  “This is only what they can expect,” one of them commented to another as they skated past Genie.  “We’ve never quite done this one before.”

She watched them join the others, and then she was just trying to both keep her eyes on Xiaoyang, from where she was lying near the middle of the group, and memorize the sight before her in general.  It was harder for her to remember things now, but this one she wanted to hold on to until the day she expired.

It was looking like they might finally all be getting into place when little eighteen-year-old Irina Darenko suddenly said, “Wait, why is Evgenia Malkin here and not in the photo with us?”

Genie opened her mouth to explain that this was just for them, and here she was just the mother of one of the players, but then Dasha Tankova, the captain, said, “You’re right, she should be in the picture.”

“I don’t…” Genie started, but now Sid was pushing her towards the ice saying, “They’re right, Genie.  Most of these girls wouldn’t be playing hockey if it wasn’t for you, right?”  She hadn’t even thought he’d been paying attention to what they’d been saying; his Russian had always been limited, and now he didn’t remember much of it anymore.

Genie would’ve been just fine on the ice if she’d been in her skates, but she was now old enough that after a few steps she tumbled down.  Xiaoyang was one of four skaters who jumped up and skated over to help her up.  More visibly moved to do so; had they all come over, everyone would’ve probably had to assemble for the photo all over again.

She wasn’t the tallest woman on the ice, but she still was more than tall enough she had to stand up with the other tall girls.  But the ones on either side of her made sure there was no more chance of her falling over.  And to smile was easy; she’d barely stopped since the final horn, even when she’d fallen just now.

Somebody brought some alcohol out afterwards, as everyone lingered to celebrate. Genie didn’t stay on the ice with them then, but sat with her family by the boards, watching them, and looking at the photo as it made its way around the world.  “How many people will know who she is, do you think?” Anya wondered.

“If anyone doesn’t,” said Kador, “someone should tell them that that is Evgenia Malkin Crosby, the mother of Russian women’s hockey, and also one of the biggest advocates against domestic violence in Russia’s history.  There should always be someone who knows.”


End file.
